April 15, 2020
As the Coronavirus pandemic continues to impact our communities, Clovernook Center is updating you on a decision the Braille Institute has reached about the National Braille Challenge.
It is abundantly clear that even in June, the Braille Challenge Finals would not be taking place in a normal environment, and so the organization has decided to operate a remote Finals event.
Since 2000, the Braille Challenge has been a celebration promoting braille literacy, advocacy, friendship, partnership, and festivities. This year, due to the COVID-19 situation, the tradition of a 2-day event consisting of Friday welcome activities, Saturday contests, and an awards ceremony at the University of Southern California will look a little different. Despite these changes, the Braille Institute aims to capture the essence of a traditional Braille Challenge Finals experience with a remote program, continuing their aim of promoting braille literacy across North America at whatever level our students may be on, in their braille-learning path.
This year, finalists and their families will not be coming to Los Angeles for the Braille Challenge experience. Instead, the experience is coming to them! Each facet of the traditional program will contain a remote-parallel. The event will start with a virtual video announcement of all the Finalists. Contestants will complete their remote Braille Challenge testing at a location collectively determined by each finalist’s family, their TVI and/or Regional Braille Challenge coordinator(s). The privately proctored test will then be sent back to Braille Institute for scoring.
Due to California’s “shelter in place” mandate, the Braille Institute has experienced a delay in their ability to process regional test and select finalists. Once the process is able to be completed, the organization will announce its 50 finalists via an update to regional coordinators, on their website and social media channels. They’ll announce finalists live on their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/brailleinstituteyouth/. All 50 finalists and their families will be personally contacted and notified by Braille Institute staff.
Please visit the website at www.braillechallenge.org to keep up-to-date with the latest news.
We will continue to update everyone as we receive information. Please follow Clovernook Center’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/clovernookcenterfortheblindandvisuallyimpared for updates.
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