Labels for Literacy® is a program designed to place more Braille on mainstream products in order to increase the usage and understanding of Braille and to bring equality of access to brand and product information for the blind and visually impaired consumers.
The Labels for Literacy® program will accomplish this by producing sheets of self-stick labels that identify common brands and products in large print and in Braille. These labels will then be distributed to blind and visually impaired consumers nationwide at no cost to them.
- Develop a comprehensive
Braille labeling system that will provide the opportunity for all persons,
blind and sighted, equal access to label information.
- Proliferate
the production of Braille on mainstream products such as consumer goods
labels to promote the use and understanding of Braille, therefore increasing
Braille literacy.
- Allow consumer packaged goods organizations the opportunity to communicate their brand's identity on an equal basis to all consumers.
Labels for Literacy® will make great strides in promoting our nation's initiatives to increase literacy in American children, especially America's blind children. Increasing the mainstream use and understanding of Braille will not only encourage more children to learn to read it, but will also promote more everyday usage of it. Putting Braille on more everyday items and in more everyday situations will increase its visibility and awareness among all readers - blind, visually impaired, and sighted. Signing on, and agreeing to support Braille literacy through this program, creates the opportunity for blind children and adults throughout America to be exposed to more Braille and to better understand it.
Educators wholeheartedly agree that the foundation of learning is reading. The foundation of learning for the blind community has been Braille. Since 1963, however, the percentage of legally blind children using Braille as their primary reading medium has dropped from 51% to 10%. That's only one out of every ten children actually reading Braille storybooks. Only one out of ten reading an encyclopedia, a dictionary, or a textbook.
This alarming drop in literacy is not due to the lack of learning potential among blind children, but instead to the lack of Braille print available to them. New audio and computing technologies now available, although a viable medium, may be contributing to the decline, but educators firmly believe that reading, and therefore Braille literacy, cannot be replaced by new audio technology. Listening is not literacy! This decline, they claim, is leading to a generation of blind children who are illiterate and not able to compete in adult life. Labels for Literacy® is committed to changing this
Providers of service to the Labels for Literacy® program include:
OmnicomGroup - New York, NY - A global leader in advertising and marketing communications, providing marketing and promotional services to national branded consumer packaged goods companies.
JHS Associates - Salem, NH - Its principal, Governor John Sununu, providing Program advisory services and nationwide marketing to the national brand markets.
Daymon Worldwide, Inc. - Stamford, CT - Providing Program advisory services and nationwide marketing to the private label and store brand markets.
C& M Marketing, Inc. - Stamford, CT - Providing label and packaging design services for the Program.
TechnoTree International, Inc. - Miami, FL - Providing the Braille printing technology that makes the Labels for Literacy® Program possible.
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