Braille Without Borders

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.

Overview
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.

Tibet T.A.R

 * School for the blind: The first centre, a school for blind Tibetan children, was established in Lhasa in 1997.


 * Massage centre: A clinical massage centre run and operated by the blind in Lhasa.


 * Vocational Training Farm: A second centre, a farm and cheese factory, for the vocational training of adults has been established at Pelshong 270km west of Lhasa near Shigatse.

India

 * Leh, information office: An information office in Leh, Ladakh, India has been established. As well as the information office a plot of land has been allocated for a training centre in Leh for the blind of Ladakh.


 * ISDeP: The International School for Development and Project Planning (or ISDeP) is being developed at Kalliyoor on the Vellayani lakeside about 10km from Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, India.

Achievements and events
In 2004, Paul and Sabriye and a team of their blind students embarked upon the Climbing Blind expedition in Tibet with a group under the leadership of Erik Weihenmayer. In 2006, the documentary film Blindsight (2006 film) about the project was released and won prizes on the instant.

Literature

 * Tenberken S. (2003) My Path Leads To Tibet, Arcade Publishing. ISBN 1-55970-658-9
 * Tenberken S. (late 2006 or early 2007) The Seventh Year - From Tibet to India

Films/Talk Shows

 * 2000 Documentary film titled Mit anderen Augen (English: With Other Eyes) about the Braille Without Borders project. (This won Sabriye the 2000 Charity Bambi Award)
 * 2005-08-15 Sabriye and Paul were guests on a talk show for CCTV 9 in Beijing, China
 * 2005-10-17 Sabriye was a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show titled 8 Women Oprah Wants You to Know, segment Phenomenal Females: Sabriye Tenberken's Journey
 * 2006 release of the documentary film Blindsight (2006 film) about the climbing project with Erik Weihenmayer and teens from the School for the Blind/Lhasa in the Himalaya