In South Africa, thousands of Independent Electoral Commission (I.E.C.) staff are set to undergo training on the rights of visually impaired voters before the local government elections.

Mawethu Mosery, the Provincial Electoral Officer in KwaZulu-Natal, said, I.E.C. staff would be educated about the provisions of the Secret Ballot of Blind Voters Act before the local government elections. He said there were various options available to blind people, including the plate system.

It provides them with what listeners like Maureen describe: "I have JAWS screen reader and a computer at home, and I can go on a newspaper website to read but it’s not the same thing. Reading something that is written from text is different from listening to somebody giving you a little personal touch as these volunteer readers do."

A not-for-profit organisation, Cris Radio (Chicagoland Radio Information Service), has been bringing news from newspapers and magazines since 1977.

Global disasters such as the Asian tsunami and the Kashmir earthquake attracted more public donations last year, due to which the smaller charities in the U.K. have suffered financial crunch. One such organisation, the National Talking Newspapers and Magazines, U.K., lost up to a fifth of its income, in the year 2005.

As the funds started shrinking, the charity that produces recorded selections from newspapers and magazines for blind and visually impaired people feared closure.

For the first time, the United Nations will be able to print material directly in Braille. The credit goes to a donation of a state-of-the-art printer by the non-profit organisation, Services for the Visually Impaired, (S.V.I.), U.S.A., along with the World Blind Union (W.B.U.).

Harold Snider, Executive Director, S.V.I., said the high-speed, heavy-duty embosser would provide the U.N. with Braille production capacity in all six of the organisation’s official languages.