A private Braille library in southwest China has started offering classes to teach blind people how to use smartphones, according to a mainland news portal.
The library opened last October in a private bookstore in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, Chinanews.com reported.
It was the first of its kind in the province and offers 500 Braille titles for visitors.
Volunteers at the library also run various courses for the blind, including classes in singing and drumming, as well lessons in how to use screen reading apps to make phone calls and send instant messages.
“Some blind families are completely isolated from the society. Smartphones are very useful to us as if it opened a window and let us walk into a new world,” Zhao Yutao, one of those who benefited from the lessons, told the website.
China is home to the world’s largest number of blind people in the world. The World Health Organisation estimates there were more than 8 million blind people in China in 2010 but the Chinese government puts this figure at more than 12 million.
However, many of these people lack support and facilities. Just 5 per cent of China’s public libraries offer reading rooms for the blind but many of these facilities are seen as inadequate.
The first private Braille library in Beijing only opened in 2011.
By contrast, Japan had 97 such facilities in place, serving 300,000 people, according to a contemporary report from Beijing News.
Japan Braille Library, one of the biggest in the country, has more 20,000 titles, both in Braille and audiobooks, and lends to more than 10,000 users annually.
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Source | SCMP
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