The Enchantment of Braille and Abiyoso Center in Najwa's Eyes

CIMAHI (August 30, 2022) - This does not correlate with the television program made by Najwa Sihab. This is about the visit of a student from Al Jabr Islamic School, Jakarta, to 'Abiyoso' Center on Tuesday, August 30, 2022. Her name is Kaysha Najwa Matondang, often called Najwa. This class X student is carrying out an assignment from school, namely working on an annual project which will later be assessed by the International Baccalaureate (IB), an international education organization whose headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland.

Of the three project ideas proposed by Najwa, the creation of a storybook, which is aimed at children with visual impairments, is a project that the school approved. The project is titled 'Interactive Sensoric Book for Visually Impaired Children.

"The book will contain children's stories written in braille, it will also be filled with pictures and other textured shapes," explained Najwa about the book she initiated.

To dig deeper into information about the process of making braille books, Najwa also visited  Abiyoso Center. Based on the results of an internet search, she found that Abiyoso Center (formerly the Indonesian Braille Literacy Center Abiyoso) is the leading braille literacy management institution in Indonesia.

During her visit to Abiyoso Center, Najwa toured the braille book production process from transliteration to packaging. Even though she had previously conducted library research, Najwa admitted that her visit to the Abiyoso Center gave him a much more meaningful experience.

"Here I know more about braille. Braille is a way of writing and reading for the visually impaired that is beautiful and easy to understand,” she said.

Najwa also expressed her admiration for Abiyoso Center. “It is an important place for the blind community. When I visited there, the people were very kind and the information explained was easy to understand.”

When asked about the background behind the idea of ​​making books for people with visual impairments, Najwa explained that she had always been interested in making books, and she had never found a book specifically for people with visual impairments. "I've never seen and heard of sensory books for blind children and I've always been interested in making books and knowing more about communities that are unfamiliar to me."

Regarding the book's contents, Najwa decided to make a story based on observations of the lives of blind children in Special Schools (SLB). "I made up the story myself, so later I want to go to SLB as well to find out more about the lives of blind children," she explained.

At the end of her visit, Najwa was allowed to take home one of Abiyoso's literacy products, namely three books that were made to introduce blind children to various shapes and textures. The sheets of paper in the book are pasted with pieces of paper with various shapes (triangles, circles, rectangles, squares, etc.) and textures (rough and smooth).

Najwa is very grateful for the opportunity she got to have these books. "Later the book that I will make is more or less like this," she concluded.

Najwa's passion to produce useful works for people with disabilities is indeed amazing. At a very young age, her concern for others is very real and deserves to be appreciated by all parties.