New dates on the list of memorable days

The Sejm supplemented the law on memorable days, with 94 MPs voting in favour of the amendments, one against and 10 MPs abstaining.

It was agreed that World Braille Day will be celebrated on 4 January, National Emancipation Day on 17 February, World NGO Day on 27 February, International Day of Persons with Disabilities in Wheelchairs on 1 March, World Autism Awareness Day on 2 April, European Day of Independent Living for Persons with Disabilities on 5 May.

On the first Saturday of August, Beekeepers’ Day will be celebrated; 23 August – International Sign Language Day; 10 October – World Mental Health Day; 15 October – White Cane Safety Day; 16 November – Lithuanian Polyphonic Songs Day (lit. sutartinės); 3 December – International Day of Disabled Persons.

The dates of the celebrations were not chosen at random

For example, the date of 4 January, when World Braille Day falls, is not coincidental. It is on this day in 1809 that Louis Braille, the inventor of tactile writing for the blind, was born. World Braille Day is a celebration in honour of Braille, a form of the alphabet that enables people who are blind, visually impaired or suffer from other visual impairments to read. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there are more than 2.2 billion such people worldwide. World Braille Day aims to raise awareness of the importance of braille as a means of communication to enable the full realisation of human rights for blind and visually impaired people. The day was established by the United Nations in 2018, with the first celebrations taking place in 2019.

Braille’s story

Braille lost his sight as a result of an accident in his father’s workshop, which he suffered at the age of 3. As a result of an infection caused by the injury, which also spread to the other eye, Braille lost his sight completely at the age of 5. Braille’s parents decided to give the boy the best possible education. At the age of 10, he left his hometown of Coupvray to attend a school for the blind in Paris. Braille learned from books written in convex script, which was, however, extremely tedious and inefficient. Wanting to open up access to information for himself and other blind people, he began to work on his own writing system.

He based his alphabet on the tactile writing system invented by Charles Barbier, which was intended to be used by soldiers to read messages in the dark. Braille published the first version of his alphabet in 1829 and another simplified version in 1837. During Braille’s lifetime, his new alphabet did not come into use at his school, and the university authorities were very hostile to it. One of the professors who translated a history book into Braille was dismissed for this. Eventually, the system was adopted at Braille’s school in 1854, and it began to be adapted throughout France. By the 1880s, it was already being used in most schools for the blind around the world (although in the USA, for example, it was not adopted until 1916).

Recognition of the merits of Lithuanian women

Recognition of the merits of Lithuanian women

National Emancipation Day is on the list of memorable days because of the first protest action in Lithuania following the proclamation of independence on 17 February 1918. The aim of the protest action was to recognise the contribution of women to the restoration of the Lithuanian state and to include them in the Lithuanian Council.