‘Most people just feel sorry... that really hurts’

The visually impaired community in the UAE faces many challenges but regulations are helping lead the way

Braille is a system of raised dots that can be read with the fingers by people who are blind or who have low vision. According to the American Foundation for the Blind, braille symbols are formed within units of space known as braille cells. A full braille cell consists of six raised dots, with 64 possible combinations using one or more of these six dots. A single cell can be used to represent an alphabet letter, number, punctuation mark or even a whole word.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide. Out of those, 39 million are blind and 246 have low vision.

Courtesy: Emirates Association of the Visually Impaired A blind student works with a Braille reader at the Emirates Association of the Visually Impaired (EAVI), which helps the visually impaired understand images and text on a laptop. People with visual impairments require assistive technology.

EAVI ‘Hag Al Laila’ celebrations at EAVI, an Emirati traditional celebration in the middle of Sha’aban, the eighth month of the Islamic Hijri calendar.