Today we welcomed 3 teachers from Al-Basiir school of the blind in Mogadishu. The school was started in 2011 in response to the requests of blind students who were left without a school after the closure of a missionary school for the blind due to the dangerous situation in the area which resulted in the foreign teachers leaving Somalia.

We want to help develop this school by training the teachers to produce braille books and teaching methods. If you would like to help in giving them second hand braillers and laptops when they leave please give a donation.

As today is World Braille day, let’s focus on a smartwatch that translates smartphone data into Braille. When wearing Dot, a Braille smartwatch, users can check the time, read incoming text messages or tweets, and even e-books. The face of the smartwatch consists of four cells with six active dots, which rise and fall to produce the four Braille characters. The rate at which the watch displays new characters can be calibrated to meet the user's reading speed. This smartwatch could also facilitate Braille learning: it spells out letters as they appear in Braille on the watch. This is an important step in improving Braille literacy as only 10% of blind students in the US are learning to read it.

Al-Fitrah foundation trustee ,Haji Othman Isa , handing over a set of braille Quran donated under our Waqf scheme and some braille Islamic books to Mr Nordin Hanafiah , a telephonist at the KOMTAR building in Penang. On his left is Mr Thangaveloo who is keen to read an English translation of the Holy Quran. Haji Othman has completed transcribing the English translation into braillle and our staff Firdaus is currently editing it . Inshaa Allah it will be ready by the end of next month.

Alex Taylor was born 16 weeks early, weighing only 900 grams. To mark the UN's International Day of Persons with Disabilities , the 25-year-old journalist who lives with cerebral palsy pens a letter to his young mother as she and her husband stood by his incubator not knowing whether their son would survive - and if he did what kind of life he would lead.

Al-Fitrah Foundation is arranging a trip to Malaysia for the teachers of Boarding Collage Al-Basiir school for the blind, to give them training to teach the blind and to produce braille school books. Inshaa Allah when they return to Mogadishu they will be able to give the blind children a proper education which will enable them to be independent and successful.