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The African Braille Computer Development (ABCD) Program

A. W. Johns

Abstract: The author presents the rationale and procedures for an innovative protocol for producing braille in English and indigenous languages for the blind and visually impaired population of Commonwealth Africa. Issues addressed include: essential technological changes; modes of transport and communication; and manpower and training demands.

There are estimated to be 1.8 million blind persons in Commonwealth Africa, half of whom are Nigerian. At least five percent-if not as many as ten percent-are of school age. Thus, at any given time there at least 90,000 blind children of whom only five percent are enrolled in school.

Responding to the need to further educational access to the blind school-age population, the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind (ACSB), in 1983 proposed guidelines, instituting a plan to address the specific problem of making text and other materials available and accessiblc to blind children and adults. One of the core objectives was that no material available to their sighted peers should be denied to these blind children, and that there had to be a dramatic increase in the amount of material in braille.

Background of African Production of Braille

The Heidelberg press has been the traditional mode of producing braille in Africa. Although the quality of the embossed material is good, the very physical nature of the presses, the plates, and the enormous weight of the equipment make transport to repair centers highly cost-inefficient. Of course, producing the braille at one site resulted in the high cost of shipping the bulky texts, not to mention that postal services were often not reliable, particularly to remote developing areas.

Another problem encountered in traditional African braille production is the reluctance to hire sighted typists in platemaking. This, then, doubled the manpower requirements by requiring the hiring of sighted readers to assist the blind stereotypists preparing text for the plates. Sutcliffe and Carey (1987) remark, "In some cases indeed, braille presses are regarded by the authorities as sheltered employment facilities for blind people rather than production centers providing a service for blind children."

Addressing these obstacles

A major priority for the project personnel in early planning stages was to review the rapid development of technology in braille production that was taking place and being utilized in Europe and the United States. Having studied various protocols, the first hurdle to overcome was to eliminate the manpower inefficiency.

Standardizing equipment and relying on disk storage for documents naturally reduces the repair and maintenance costs of the equipment as more trained repair persons become available, and as the cost of shipping the older presses was eliminated. Also, experience had shown that braille producing facilities were often reluctant to produce braille for countries other than their own not simply for logistical reasons but also for those of currency exchange problems. RSCB decided, therefore, that the project should input, edit, and proofread text at one central site-the "head" site-and ship the disks to various local "tail" sites for the actual embossing.

(Photo Caption)

Credit: Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind

NIGERIA: A visually impaired young woman using braille translation software.

Overview of the system

As mentioned, perhaps the single most important element of the ABCD protocol is that of the centralization of the processes of all tasks of braille production except for the actual embossing. With the embossing being done at local tail sites, much of the cost of shipping the braille texts themselves would be eliminated. Disks encoded with the text would be transported between the head site and the tail (embossing) centers. Electronic transfer, both by telephone and radio, was considered, but found to be unreliable with a higher chance of data being corrupted.

With the use of microcomputers in the preparation of the texts, new software and adaptive screen enhancement technology encourage employment of blind computer operators and technicians.

The basic path of production

The first step in the production of a braille text is the inputting of the of the original inkprint text to disk. Once the text has been proofed against the original, editing and formatting can be done electronically using a variety of wordprocessing software packages. When the text has been properly prepared on disk at the head site, it is sent to one of the tail sites where the data is converted and formatted with the proper codes so that a microcomputer loaded with appropriate software can read and transmit the data to a braille embosser resulting in the brailled document. Provisions for storage of data on hard disks off-site is essential in the event that the disks are damaged in transport to the tail sites.

Braille translation in African languages

Most of the braille requirements are for grade 1 braille, however difficulties can arise if contractions or non-Roman print characters are part of the language being translated into braille. Specific software modifications for contractions are possible, as well as the extension of a computer's character set to handle unique marks.

Fortunately African languages use Roman script, except for a few variations, mainly Hausa, a Nigerian language. The project protocol broke down the priority of producing braille into the following four categories:

1. Indigenous languages grade 1;

2. English grade 1;

3. English grade 2; and

4. Kiswahili grade 2.

Tail sites have total authority concerning the actual braille embossed at the facility.

Summary

The African Braille Computer Development project of RCSB enables and encourages blind children to read material formerly unavailable or unattainable. As textbooks change, updating and correction can stay current allowing blind and visually impaired school children to be able to maintain the level of literacy skills of their sighted peers. The actual physical availability of braille books will increase dramatically as many more are produced on-site, with particular emphasis given to the local requirements of content, quantity, language, and level.

References

Sutcliffe, A.G. & Carey, K.E (1987). ABCD--African braille computer development, 3rd edition: Project proposal to provide blind children in Commonwealth Africa with braille text in indigenous languages and English. West Sussex, UK: The Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind.

Alan W. Jobns, OBE, executive director, The Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind, Commonwealth House, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 3AZ, UK