[Blindtlk] Geerat Vermeij to Serve as National Ambassador for Braille Literacy

[Freeh, Jessica]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



CONTACT:

Chris Danielsen

Public Relations Specialist

National Federation of the Blind

(410) 659-9314, extension 2330

(410) 262-1281 (Cell)

<mailto:cdanielsen at nfb.org>cdanielsen at nfb.org


Geerat Vermeij to Serve as National Ambassador for Braille Literacy



Baltimore, Maryland (November 17, 2008): The 
National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the 
nation’s leading advocate for Braille literacy, 
announced today that Dr. Geerat Vermeij, 
professor of geology at the University of 
California at Davis and MacArthur Fellowship 
Award recipient, will serve as a National 
Ambassador for Braille literacy.  As an 
ambassador, Dr. Vermeij will help advance the 
NFB’s Braille Readers are Leaders campaign, a 
national initiative to promote the importance of 
reading and writing Braille for blind children 
and adults.  The Braille Readers are Leaders 
campaign kicked off in July of 2008 with the 
unveiling of the design of a commemorative coin 
to be minted in 2009 in recognition of the 
two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Louis 
Braille (1809–1852), the inventor of the reading 
and writing code for the blind that bears his name.



Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National 
Federation of the Blind, said: “The National 
Federation of the Blind is pleased to have Dr. 
Vermeij as part of this historic initiative to 
bring Braille literacy to all of the blind 
children and adults in America who need it.  Dr. 
Vermeij is a professor, an evolutionary biologist 
and paleontologist, and an accomplished 
author­­­­and he uses Braille to effectively do 
this work.  His success as a blind individual is 
surely an inspiration to blind children and 
adults learning Braille throughout the United 
States and the world.  There can be no doubt that 
the ability to read and write Braille competently 
and efficiently is the key to education, 
employment, and success for the blind.  Despite 
the undisputed value of Braille, however, only 
about 10 percent of blind children in the United 
States are currently learning it.  Society would 
never accept a 10 percent literacy rate among 
sighted children; it should not accept such an 
outrageously low literacy rate among the 
blind.  The Braille Readers are Leaders campaign, 
with the support of influential scholars like 
Geerat Vermeij, will reverse the downward trend 
in Braille literacy and ensure that equal 
opportunities in education and employment are 
available to all of the nation’s blind.”



Geerat Vermeij said: “I am honored and pleased to 
serve as a National Ambassador for the Braille 
Readers are Leaders campaign.  I can emphatically 
say that Braille literacy is critical and that 
the lack of Braille instruction in classrooms 
today is outrageous.  Without the use of Braille, 
I simply would not be able to do my job­­I use it 
every day while collecting and analyzing data, 
maintaining an enormous Braille library of 
scientific material, and writing 
manuscripts.  Braille literacy has helped me to 
achieve my goals, and I hope to help other blind 
children and adults do the same.”



For more information about the Braille Readers 
are Leaders campaign and the Louis Braille 
commemorative coin, please visit <http://www.braille.org/>www.braille.org.





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