27,000 People To Help Braille Week

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30496, 18 July 1964, Page 17

27,000 People To Help Braille Week

Preparations for Braille Week, 1964, are now complete, and tomorrow the 27,000 people involved in this nation-wide programme to raise money for the blind will begin their work. In the New Zealand Foundation for the Blind’s headquarters in Bristol street, volunteer workers are getting posters and literature for schools ready to send out, and preparing 4000 collectors’ kitsets. Each collector is provided with a badge, car stickers, an envelope for returns and a map of the area he will collect in.

The Foundation hopes the house-to-house collecting will be completed in two hours next Saturday. A great deal of planning has resulted in the division of the city into 4000 areas, each containing 80 homes for a collector to visit. The areas are grouped under leaders. A committee of representatives from service organisations, planned the Christchurch operations. The district covered includes from the Waitaki river north to Collingwood as well as Westland. The Post Office has assisted by delivering free-of charge an envelope to every household in the country. The money donated by the public next week, will support the Foundation for 12 months. This involves the care of the 3050 blind people, with a new case being registered every day. Children and babies are cared for, accommodated and educated. From all over New Zealand, children attended the Parnell training centre in Auckland. There, they are taught the use of the Braille machine, general education and how to care for themselves in every day life. One blind youngster, Paul, aged eight, flies home from Auckland every holidays. He can read from his Braille book stories on an ordinary eight-year-old’s level, plays

football, and can walk on stilts.

Adults are trained and accomodated at homes such as Fernwood House, in Ranfurly street. Visits are made dally to blind and partially-blind people living in their homes. The manager of the Foundation (Mr G. Ashdown) who is blind himself, and workers at the centre go on regular visits to all parts of Canterbury, and Nelson.

Braille Week is not for the money for the already blind. It is also designed to bring attention to the less tangible functions of the Foundation’s work—research into the prevention of blindness, the conservation and appreciation of sight. Safety posters have been sent out to factories, pamphlets distributed, and literature given to schools and teachers. With the success of this appeal, and the interest created through Braille Week the New Zealand Foundation for the Blind will be able to continue in its work of accommodating, caring for and making useful and rewarding lives for the visually handicapped in New Zealand.