In just two years of the project, “Braille Book”, a family Foundation of Sviatoslav Nechytailo published 20 books for blind children with a total circulation of 2000 copies. Among them, the first published anthology of modern Ukrainian literature for elementary school students. She goes out almost simultaneously with its print counterpart. This is the rare case when a new book gets to their sighted and blind the reader at the same time. The project is implemented with the support of the Ministry of education of Ukraine.
The project “Book by Braille” was launched in 2015. His task is to make accessible the reading of literature for the blind, primarily to children of preschool and school ages.
Every year the Fund publishes in Braille at least 10 books for schoolchildren, also supports regional centres of publishing small editions of books for blind preschoolers. A number of books were provided by leading publishing houses of Ukraine: publishing house “A-BA-BA-ha-La-mA-ha” and “Wydawnictwa Old Leva”. Average circulation of each edition – 100 copies. The newsletter covers 32 specialized library society for the blind, 10 special schools for the blind and visually impaired. In addition, for the first time, we organized distribution in regional libraries and other organizations that work on behalf of the blind children. This is to ensure that the thesis “the equality of rights and opportunities” was implemented in Ukraine in practice, a blind child could get printed for him a book is not only special, but in a conventional library.apple-converted-space”> Such initiatives in recent years has been quite small, and, as a rule, books in Braille were published in small numbers for distribution exclusively in special schools.
Implementation of the project for children was made possible thanks to the Charity Fund Sviatoslav Nechytailo, with the support of the Lviv regional branch of the “Ukrainian Union of invalids”, the resource center at the national University “Lviv Polytechnic” and the national house of recording and printing society for the blind.
“In the beginning of the year the Minister of education Lilia Hrynevych has introduced a new Reader for elementary school children. On the part of children from all over Ukraine will be this good. Only children who do not see, usually remain with no new products, because, as a rule, books for the blind are issued several years after the publication in the usual format. But this year, with the support of the family Foundation Nechitailo Anthology of modern Ukrainian children’s literature published in Braille, almost simultaneously with its analogue for the sighted reader. So, September 1 do all children in primary schools will receive this wonderful new,” – says Oksana Potymko, head of the Resource centre of educational information technologies for persons with special needs at the University “Lviv Polytechnic”.
Another initiative of the family Foundation Nechitaylo – preparation generalized into a single directory of information about the books published in Braille by different initiatives over the past few years, which are available in Ukraine. It brings the book to the child and the teacher, who works with the blind student. The catalog is in test mode and is available here:
http://nechytailo.fund/ru/sobytiya-2/257-kakie-knigi-izdany-brajlem-i-gde-ikh-iskat
The project “Book by Braille” is open for cooperation with other organizations who are willing to support print books for visually impaired children.
