President’s Blog

The Government is conducting a review of special education. We have submitted our views on the points raised by the review and we have contributed to a submission on behalf of the blindness sector. Last week Martine Abel and I appeared in person in front of the review panel to speak in support of our submission. Amongst the panel members was the Associate Minister for Education, Hon. Heather Roy.

First and foremost, like all other students, blind and low vision students have a right to be educated to their maximum potential. This is the principle that guides our approach to this topic. (more…)

In this third posting in my series on access by blind people to everyday published information, I will briefly discuss the concept of copyright exemptions and explain why they are needed.

The starting point is to understand how blind people access information. Because publishers almost never publish books in an accessible format, it falls essentially to the mostly voluntary blindness agencies around the world to apply their own resources to create accessible versions of books. According to the World Blind Union’s Right to Read campaign, (more…)

Here we are in 2009 and it is now time for me to ensure that I keep this blog fresh and up to date, keeping you all informed on issues of concern to blind people in New Zealand and what the Association of Blind Citizens is up to. I will try to update the blog at least every week or fortnight.

Sometimes the blog will be rather personal, and that is the case this time. For me, this year began with a personal trip to Paris to share in the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille. New Zealand was actually very well represented by something like eleven people, (more…)