Star Globetrotters Help Blind Children to “See” the World
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A host of star travel writers, broadcasters, adventurers and organisers have come together to bring distant corners of the world to life for blind children through special feely pictures and audio commentary produced in a World Travel Pack by the award winning charity Living Paintings.
Amar Latif originally from Glasgow and now based in Leeds, who, despite being blind, runs a successful travel company taking blind and partially sighted people all over the world, introduces feely pictures of Thailand. Springwatch’s Kate Humble covers China, talking about the conservation of Giant Pandas. Bruce Parry and Simon Reeve relive experiences as explorers in Mexico and Australia, whilst skier Chemmy Alcott revisits Switzerland. Russia, Turkey, Mexico, Peru and Kenya are also visited.
The pack comes with a special feely version of the book: “My Granny Went to Market” which takes a whiz around the world in rhyme, shopping for exotic things and counting all the way and this script is read by Judith Chalmers.
Each reader’s job is to explain the pictures that are not in feely form, and guide little fingers over the raised images. Each section uses music from the country, and a few words of the relevant language.
Living Paintings’ Chief Executive Camilla Oldland says: “We are delighted to publish this new pack as travel brings real joys, and sharing these with youngsters who have little or no sight is a wonderful thing to do. We are so grateful to all the famous presenters who took time out to help us with this”.
All Living Paintings’ books are loaned for free through a postal library. This takes tales like this to children all over these islands, and sometimes further afield. These books can also be shared with friends and family who can see because the feely pictures are coloured in and the story is there in the original words as well as in Braille.
To join this free library all you have to do is call 01635 299771 or go to the website www.livingpaintings.org.
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