Summer program teaches blind students life skills

The BELL Camp, that stands for Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning, is a summer program for blind students.

The camp teaches kids Braille and other skills they need to be successful. It’s a way for the students to have role models who are blind that can show them that blindness does not define them. We talked to one parent who is also a certified teacher, who says activities like this are important for development.

“They tend to think, ‘oh blind sounds hard, they can’t do that.’ they do things like fetch food for them or dumb down things and our blind children can accomplish everything that any sighted person can do. They may do it differently so they need to be around adults that they can see have succeeded, have raised families, have held down good jobs who understand the importance of learning braille and learning to be independent,” says Teri, Hill, Certified teacher and parent of a blind student.

This is the seventh year of the camp. The camp is run as a volunteer service by National Federation of the Blind.