A Saskatchewan boy who qualified for an international braille competition in Los Angeles next month hopes he can inspire change in his home province.
Isaiah Gauthier, 10, was born with a visual impairment. He punched his ticket to Braille Challenge finals after cracking the top 10 in the world for his age category during a regional braille contest earlier this year. He’s the first student in Saskatchewan to ever qualify for the event.
"To be the first, maybe other people can realize how important braille is," Gauthier said.
More than 1,100 blind and visually impaired students from Grades 1 to 12 competed across Canada, the United States and the U.K.
The Braille Challenge tests them on speed and accuracy with their reading, spelling, proof reading and graphs. Gauthier is the only student in his school who competed.
"It just kind of feels weird being one of the only people in the school who actually knows what it (braille) means," he said.
Gauthier started learning braille in kindergarten with the help of his teacher Christina Jean. He uses two types of machines that allow him to read and write in braille.
"It’s a different language, and it’s a really cool language," Gauthier said.
"It’s very important to have braille because if there’s a blind person they need to know which door goes to what."
Elevators generally have braille as well as some washrooms, but Gauthier would like to see all signs include braille to increase accessibility.
He even wrote to the board of a regional park asking them to install a braille sign for its mini golf course so he can tell when it is open.
"He's getting to the age where he'd like to be able to go more independently, and he has to rely on whoever is with him to say this is a men's washroom or the women's washroom," Jean said, adding the cost to include braille on new signs can be minimal.
"It’s just opening the world up to everyone."
Braille is a tactile writing system based on a 63-character code. Letters of the alphabet are represented by braille symbols, and in contracted braille, symbols can represent words.
Gauthier, who is in Grade 4, is at a Grade 7 level for braille.
He is one of five Canadians who qualified to compete at the two-day championship in L.A. at the end of June.
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