Music legend?Stevie Wonder?had a strong and powerful message marking the 10th anniversary of the Convention on the??at the UN back in 2016.
¡°We need to have equal access to education and to knowledge and information,¡± he told delegates.?
¡°Yet, out of millions of publications each year, fewer than five per cent are made available in accessible formats for visually impaired persons in developing countries."
The global superstar, who lost his sight shortly after birth, was designated as a Messenger of Peace in 2009 with a focus on persons with disabilities.
He has advocated for the adoption of the??to facilitate access to published works for persons who are blind, visually impaired, or have other print disabilities.
¡°Someone being sighted doesn¡¯t mean that they should be blind to those things in the world that we need to fix,¡± he said.
Connecting the dots
It¡¯s a staggering figure: more than one billion people suffer from vision impairment that could have been prevented or has yet to be addressed.
That¡¯s according to the World Health Organization (),?which also pointed out that anyone whose eyesight is impaired is likely to be poorer and more disadvantaged than someone with 20/20 vision.
WHO noted that vision problems often leave people with ¡°a lifetime of inequality, poorer health, and barriers to education and employment¡±.
WHO explained that the Convention backs the promotion of Braille which is ¡°essential for education, freedom of expression and opinion, access to information and social inclusion.
This is why the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities should be welcomed by all.
Watch the?above or on UN Video¡¯s??playlist, cultivated from the?¡¯s?49,400 hours of video and 18,000 hours of audio recordings.?
