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itra Netra, a nonprofit organization focused on improving the opportunities of the visually impaired, says it is striving to provide braille books to combat illiteracy among the blind.

One of the group’s activists, Aria Indrawati, said many blind people were illiterate because they had no access to any reading materials.

“Years ago when I was still in primary school there were no braille books available to allow us to learn like everyone else,” said Aria, who is also visually impaired.

She said she had had to make her own books, or ask others to read them to her.

Aria has been visually impaired since she was a baby.

There are several reading options available to the blind, including braille books, audiobooks and automated text readers.

So far, Mitra Netra has collected 1,399 book titles in braille, around 3,000 audiobooks on casette and more than 2,000 audiobooks in sound file format.

Aria, who has graduated from law school, said it was a pity that the conditions of the blind had not improved much in the country.

Aria said the government’s actions in providing books for the blind did not take into account the needs of their intended recipients.

“They print braille books without asking what kind of books they actually need,” she said.

Mitra Netra is alone in Indonesia in its mission to produce braille books, Aria said, adding that it was time consuming to convert books to braille. She said Indonesia should adopt regulations in other countries, such as one that obliged book publishers to submit their new books to braille book publishers.

“It’s the same for people who can see, visually impaired people can be smarter if they read,” Aria said.

— Hera Khaerani is an intern with The Jakarta Post