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Braille Literacy and Self-esteem: A Report from Uruguay

E. Elissalde

The Braille Foundation of Uruguay has been producing braille materials for 21 years, including a weekly braille version of the Montevideo newspaper, El Observador. During that time, we have heard from many blind persons, their families, and persons in the community about how access to braille materials fosters an increase in self-esteem. This Comment presents representative excerpts from our correspondence files from 1975-1995.

THREE EXAMPLES

Ydalia is a 20-year-old Venezuelan girl who is blind. She is studying literature at Caracas University. When she first came to the Braille Foundation of Uruguay, she told us how much braille meant to her: "I yearned so much to make up for the long years I had spent without the possibility of reading that I took the [braille] magazine Martin Pescador to bed and I read and read." At that time, she was a student at a residential school, and the school caretaker asked her to let other girls read the magazine, too. "I wanted the magazine only for myself. And when I fell asleep I used to dream that my name appeared either in the monthly drawing of lots or in the Readers' Mailbox."

We also received a letter from Mrs. Jeanette Tapia Fuentes, a mother of a young blind child. She wrote to us from Santiago de Chile to say that "you have made my son awfully happy because for the first time in his life he has received a letter addressed to him in the mail and he was able to read it."

Miguel Vizcardo, from Lima, Peru, wrote us an equally moving letter. In it, he said: "My daughter is so happy whenever she receives a [braille] book that if she happens to be ill, her health improves with the eagerness to read the stories."

At many levels, self-esteem and literacy are related. Literacy enhances the dialogue between an individual and those who surround him or her. The dialogue may be between student and teacher, parent and child, or child and book.

THE STUDENT-TEACHER DIALOGUE

One teacher, F. Franco M., from Medellin, Colombia, wrote to us about how access to braille materials enhances his experiences with his students: "As a teacher at the Francisco Luis Hernandez School for the Blind and the Deaf, I am lucky because I can always use such excellent [braille] materials and everyday we encounter wonderful surprising new experiences." Braille materials allow both the student and teacher to share the surprise while reading together and enhances the student's self-esteem and sense of independence.

THE PARENT-CHILD DIALOGUE

Braille materials can also positively affect a child's relationship with his or her parents. For example, the parents of Jesica I. Gutierrez wrote to us from Cordoba, Argentina: "We are so proud . . . because [our blind daughter] may have the opportunity to build her own library as any other child." When parents discover that their child who is blind can do what other children do and that the parents can share those activities, the parents' pride helps build their child's self-esteem.

THE CHILD-BOOK DIALOGUE

The pride a child takes in braille books can also positively affect self-esteem. When the Braille Foundation of Uruguay began producing toy books 20 years ago, we were trying to motivate young children to read. We changed the traditional shape of books to represent such objects as cars, ships, tools, and small animals. Toy books convey to blind children that their braille books are as beautiful as those of their sighted siblings and friends. Praise for the book is taken as praise for the child.

COMMUNITY PERCEPTIONS AND SELF-ESTEEM

A person's knowledge of the events in the community has a large impact on his or her self-esteem. The weekly braille production of the newspaper El Observador in Uruguay has increased blind persons' access to information and thus has had a dramatic impact on their self-esteem. The community's positive reception of the braille newspaper has also contributed to increased self-esteem for blind readers.

The braille newspaper shares space on the newsstand with inkprint newspapers and magazines. To publicize its availability, the Braille Foundation launched a public service announcement campaign using slogans, such as "When the piece of news can be touched instead of seen." Giving braille such a high community visibility put blind persons in the foreground in an extremely positive way. This new status in the community helped bolster blind persons' self-esteem.

Teresita binds braille publications and therefore has access to the material even before it arrives at the newsstand. When asked why she wanted to buy a copy from the newsstand, she replied that being able to buy a braille newspaper is something she could never do before and it gives her a wonderful new feeling of independence and equality.

As Karen Duefias Guevara wrote to us from Cusco, Peru, braille books and magazines represent "a hope for everyday life," a means of giving persons who are blind access to the same information that sighted persons have. This equalization of opportunity heightens self-esteem. As H.D. Bhola says in an UNESCO brochure: "Nowadays, self-esteem and illiteracy do not seem compatible." With braille literacy, we become the masters of our own life; we stop feeling inferior when we trust ourselves and value what we are.

Enrique Elissalde, president, Braille Foundation of Uruguay (Fundacion Braille del Uruguay), Durazno 1772, Montevideo, Uruguay.