Braille Without Borders (BWB) is an international organisation for the blind in developing countries. It was founded in Lhasa, Tibet, by Sabriye Tenberken and Paul Kronenberg in 1998.
BWB's mission is to give hope and practical skills to the blind and in particular to teach braille to the blind in developing countries; if no braille script exists for a particular language in a developing country, BWB must first develop it.
Formerly known as the Project for the Blind, Tibet, in September 2002 the project adopted the name Braille Without Borders.
In August 2017 it was made public that Chinese authorities will shut down the school for the blind as well as the vocational training farm without giving reasons. [1]
In 2004, Paul and Sabriye and a team of their blind students from Lhasa embarked upon the Climbing Blind expedition in Tibet under the leadership of blind Everest mountaineer Erik Weihenmayer. The prize-winning documentary Blindsight about this expedition was released worldwide to cinemas in 2006.
Tibet is a region in the central part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about 2,500,000 km2 (970,000 sq mi). It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as the Monpa, Tamang, Qiang, Sherpa and Lhoba peoples and, since the 20th century, considerable numbers of Han Chinese and Hui settlers. Since the 1951 annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China, the entire plateau has been under the administration of the People's Republic of China. Tibet is divided administratively into the Tibet Autonomous Region, and parts of the Qinghai and Sichuan provinces. Tibet is also constitutionally claimed by the Republic of China as the Tibet Area since 1912.
Lhasa is the urban center of the prefecture-level Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Region in southwest China. The inner urban area of Lhasa City is equivalent to the administrative borders of Chengguan District, which is part of the wider prefectural Lhasa City.
While the Tibetan plateau has been inhabited since pre-historic times, most of Tibet's history went unrecorded until the introduction of Tibetan Buddhism around the 6th century. Tibetan texts refer to the kingdom of Zhangzhung as the precursor of later Tibetan kingdoms and the originators of the Bon religion. While mythical accounts of early rulers of the Yarlung Dynasty exist, historical accounts begin with the introduction of Buddhism from India in the 6th century and the appearance of envoys from the unified Tibetan Empire in the 7th century. Following the dissolution of the empire and a period of fragmentation in the 9th-10th centuries, a Buddhist revival in the 10th–12th centuries saw the development of three of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
The subject of blindness and education has included evolving approaches and public perceptions of how best to address the special needs of blind students. The practice of institutionalizing the blind in asylums has a history extending back over a thousand years, but it was not until the 18th century that authorities created schools for them where blind children, particularly those more privileged, were usually educated in such specialized settings. These institutions provided simple vocational and adaptive training, as well as grounding in academic subjects offered through alternative formats. Literature, for example, was being made available to blind students by way of embossed Roman letters.
Erik Weihenmayer is an American athlete, adventurer, author, activist and motivational speaker. He was the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on May 25, 2001. As a result of this accomplishment he was featured on the cover of Time magazine. He also completed the Seven Summits in September 2002, one of only 150 mountaineers at the time to do so, but the only climber who achieved this while blind. In 2008, he also added the Carstensz Pyramid thus completing the Eight Summits. Weihenmayer has also made noteworthy climbs up the Nose of El Capitan in Yosemite in 1996, and ascended Losar, a 2,700-foot (820 m) vertical ice face in the Himalayas in 2008.
Tri Songdetsen was the son of Me Agtsom, the 38th emperor of Tibet. He ruled from AD 755 until 797 or 804. Tri Songdetsen was the second of the Three Dharma Kings of Tibet, playing a pivotal role in the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet and the establishment of the Nyingma or "Ancient" school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Ngari Prefecture or Ali Prefecture is a prefecture of China's Tibet Autonomous Region covering Western Tibet, whose traditional name is Ngari Khorsum. Its administrative centre and largest settlement is the town of Shiquanhe. It is one of the least densely populated areas in the world, with 0.3 people per kilometer.
Shannan, also known as Lhoka, is a prefecture in the southeastern Tibet Autonomous Region, China. Shannan includes Gonggar County within its jurisdiction with Gongkar Chö Monastery, Gonggar Dzong, and Gonggar Airport all located near Gonggar town.
Sabriye Tenberken is a German tibetologist and co-founder of the organisation Braille Without Borders.
Lucy Walker is an English film director. She has directed the documentaries Devil's Playground (2002), Blindsight (2006), Waste Land (2010), Countdown to Zero (2010), and The Crash Reel (2013). She has also directed the short films The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom (2011) and The Lion's Mouth Opens (2014).
Blindsight is a 2006 documentary film directed by Lucy Walker and produced by Sybil Robson Orr for Robson Entertainment. It premiered at 2006 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in the category Real to Reel.
Tibet was a de facto independent state in East Asia that lasted from the collapse of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty in 1912 until its annexation by the People's Republic of China in 1951.
The CIA Tibetan program was an anti-Chinese covert operation spanning almost twenty years. It consisted of "political action, propaganda, paramilitary and intelligence operations" facilitated by arrangements made with brothers of the 14th Dalai Lama, who himself was not initially aware of them. The stated goal of the program was "to keep the political concept of an autonomous Tibet alive within Tibet and among several foreign nations". The program was admininstrated by the CIA, and unofficially operated in coordination with domestic agencies such as the Department of State and the Department of Defense.
Drapchi is a 2013 Tibetan-language Film directed by Arvind Iyer and stars acclaimed Tibetan singer Namgyal Lhamo in the lead role as Yiga Gyalnang. The film is a musical drama set against the backdrop of Tibet and Nepal and based on a true story. Drapchi has screened at the Manneim-Heidelberg, Cairo International, Warsaw International, Kerala International and Rome Independent Film Festival.
Prostitution in Tibet is thought to have existed for centuries. Testimonies of its existence were provided by outside visitors in the first half of the twentieth century. According to the British writer Christopher Hale, due to the practice of polyandry in Tibet, many women were unable to find a husband and moved to villages and towns, where they fell into prostitution. Their clients came from the caravans crossing the Tibetan plateau, and also from the monasteries.
Jawahar Lal Kaul is an Indian social worker and the founder of the All India Conference of the Blind, an NGO working towards the rehabilitation of the blind. He was honoured by the Government of India, in 2014, which bestowed on him the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for his services to the field of arts.
Lhasa is a prefecture-level city, one of the main administrative divisions of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It covers an area of 29,274 square kilometres (11,303 sq mi) of rugged and sparsely populated terrain. Its urban center is Lhasa, with around 300,000 residents, which mostly corresponds with the administrative Chengguan District, while its suburbs extend into Doilungdêqên District and Dagzê District. The consolidated prefecture-level city contains additional five, mostly rural, counties.
Tiffany Brar is an Indian community service worker who became blind as an infant due to oxygen toxicity. Brar is the founder of the Jyothirgamaya Foundation, a non-profit organization that teaches life skills to blind people of all ages. She is a trainer, a campaigner for disability awareness and an advocates for an inclusive society.
Jyothirgamaya Foundation is a nonprofit organization, based in Thiruvananthapuram Kerala which is actively involved in the empowerment of persons with visual impairment founded in 2015 by Tiffany Brar. The project started as a mobile blind school in 2012. Tiffany Brar herself, traveled through rural areas in public transport in search of blind people of all ages in rural areas in India, with the aim of bringing out of the four walls of their house, to which they are confined, and brings a new light to their eyes, which has nothing to do with their eyesight. Jyothirgamaya Foundation holds Special consultative status with United Nations.