SKILLS PUT TO THE TEST
Only 3 Canadians in competition
Louis St. Laurent Catholic School student Steve Kiema, 12, arrives at his school with his mother Catherine Kirugi on Thursday to compete in the 2020 Braille Challenge finals. The Grade 7 student is one of three Canadians to make it to the finals.
Grade 7 student Steve Kiema is putting his skills at reading and writing braille to the test.
The 12-year-old, who is blind, was one of 50 students to make it to the finals of the Braille Challenge, which is the only academic competition of its kind in North America for those who are blind or visually impaired. Getting to this point was no easy task as he had to spend months preparing for the tests, which are spread out over the course of several hours.
As he walked into Louis St. Laurent Catholic Junior/high School on Thursday with his mother, Catherine Kirugi, a large crowd of supporters cheered him on as he prepared to take the test.
“I just think it’s important that I try my best,” Kiema said.
Braille is a reading and writing system for those who are visually impaired. It uses raised dots that people trace over with their fingers.
Normally, finalists are flown to Los Angeles but organizers had to adjust because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, finalists will be taking the four exams, which are about 45 minutes each, remotely. The exams test students in a variety of ways, including speed and accuracy, spelling and reading comprehension. There are 10 students in each category.
Kiema, who is one of three Canadians in the challenge, including a girl from Calgary, said he’s simply there for the experience.
Kirugi said she was more nervous on her son’s behalf but excited at the same time. She said it meant a lot to see all the support for him.
“It’s taken a lot of work,” Kirugi said. “He’s been learning his braille all the way since kindergarten. Now he’s been able to compete at an international level because it (involves the United States), so it’s good. It shows the results of all his hard work.”
Kiema was born with Leber congenital amaurosis, a genetic retinal disease causing blindness or severe vision loss in early childhood. Kirugi said her goal was to help Kiema become as independent as possible.
“We’ve worked to ensure he gets acute orientation and mobility skills so that he’s able to walk around like (here) in school (and) he doesn’t need anybody because he’s mastered that at home,” she said. “We’ve labelled things with braille numbers and signs and we brought him into sports. He’s doing swimming, he does judo.”
Tanya Van Drunen, a braille transcriber, has been working with Kiema since he was in kindergarten and helped prepare him for the competition. She said the tests can be exhausting as students have to listen to an audio recording while typing braille on a specialized typewriter called a brailler.
She said she is proud to see the hard work pay off. “When everyone else stopped their online learning on the 18th of June, Steve and I kept going and we worked every day anywhere between an hour or three, and he persevered.”
The winners will be announced at a virtual awards ceremony held at the Braille Institute in Los Angeles, which will be lived streamed on Youtube July 31.