A blind Palestinian woman is helping visitors to the 42nd Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) send out letters of love, hope and peace to children who can\u2019t see.<\/p>\n
22-year-old Raneem Ahmed, who was born without eyes, is helping type out personalised messages in braille for blind children around the world as part of the Sharjah-based global non-profit Kalimat Foundation\u2019s Ara (I see) <\/em>initiative that supports blind and visually impaired children by facilitating the production of Arabic content in braille and other accessible formats.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m here to tell people that the blind can also read and write. I want to show everybody how we use the braille on a typewriter to express ourselves and even write or read,\u201d says Raneem who teaches blind children of different age groups how to use the tactile writing system for the visually impaired created by Frenchman Louis Braille in 1824.<\/p>\n \u201cLetters typed by Raneem on behalf of guests attending the 12-day festival will eventually be included in books that will be distributed to blind children this year as part of Kalimat\u2019s \u2018Ara\u2019 initiative that distributes accessible books for blind and visually impaired children. \u201cThis is our way of telling [blind children] not to give up and that there is hope that they must see,\u201d adds Raneem, explaining how her letters \u00ad\u00adwritten on behalf of this year\u2019s SIBF attendees \u2013 young and old alike \u2013 will go on to play a huge role in integrating the visionless children back into mainstream by providing them books to read.<\/p>\n And what\u2019s the best message she has typed out so far at the 12-day festival being held at the Sharjah Expo Centre until November 12? \u201cDon\u2019t abandon your dreams,\u201d says the psychology major from Ajman University. \u201cThis struck a chord with me because if you don\u2019t give up, you will get to where you want to be. If you cannot see what you have, then dream on and you will achieve it,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n Kalimat Foundation\u2019s \u2018Ara\u2019 initiative has been empowering blind and visually-impaired children by ensuring their right to access resources of knowledge. Its objectives reflect the mandate set out in the 2013 Marrakesh Treaty, on the availability of books in accessible formats, for the blind, the visually impaired, and those who have print disabilities. To date, Ara has facilitated the production and distribution of more than 30,000 accessible books, locally, regionally and internationally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A blind Palestinian woman is helping visitors to the 42nd Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) send out letters of love, hope and peace to children who can\u2019t see. 22-year-old Raneem Ahmed, who was born without eyes, is helping type out personalised messages in braille for blind children around the world as part of the Sharjah-based<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/evisionworlds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/evisionworlds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/evisionworlds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evisionworlds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evisionworlds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/evisionworlds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8120,"href":"https:\/\/evisionworlds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8118\/revisions\/8120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evisionworlds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/evisionworlds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evisionworlds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evisionworlds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}