[Nfbmo] Fw: [Nfb-announce] Geerat Vermeij to Serve as National Ambassador for Braille Literacy

[Fred]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Freeh,Jessica (by way of David Andrews <dandrews at visi.com>)" 
<JFreeh at nfb.org>
To: <david.andrews at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 9:33 PM
Subject: [Nfb-announce] Geerat Vermeij to Serve as National Ambassador for 
Braille Literacy


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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