Daily Star - Unesco Releases 28 Audio Books For Visually Impaired - Saturday, January 30

BEIRUT: Twenty-eight audio books for visually impaired children were released on Thursday by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) office in Beirut and Al-Hadi Foundation for Audio, Visual, and Language and Communication Disorders. The project was part of the Beirut World Book Capital 2009 and consisted of children’s stories registered on CDs and accompanied by sound effects. It is the second of its kind as last year about 50 similar books were published all over Lebanon.
The director of Al-Hadi Foundation, Ismail al-Zein, said the project was only an example of how we can provide the visually impaired with knowledge, noting that the books would be available in 50 book stores across the country.
Zein added that the project still needed to be expanded and more books needed to be made available on CDs. He called on all publishing houses, writers, investors and concerned ministries to offer their help.
Culture Minister Salim Wardeh reiterated the importance of using available technologies to provide literature for the visually impaired. He said that about 31,000 people in Lebanon fell into that category and they needed “special care in order to integrate with everyone else in various fields.”
Wardeh added that Lebanon has made remarkable progress in guaranteeing rights for disabled people and that the ministry was committed to “take all measures needed to provide the disabled with the chance to develop their capacities.”
For his part, the representative of the UNESCO office Suleiman Suleiman stressed the importance of book stores in spreading information and added that UNESCO has always been ready to support member atates in developing cultural programs.
Head of the communications department at UNESCO Georges Awad said the project was especially important because not only did it provide information to the visually impaired but also helped them get integrated in their society. – The Daily Star