Brisbane Airport’s lost property auctioned off to help blind with braille books
Vision-impaired Eva, 10, loves to read braille books such as Harry Potter. Now 25 more such books will be printed for blind and low-vision people, thanks to Brisbane Airport’s lost property charity auction through The Courier-Mail Children’s Fund.
QLD News
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Proceeds from an auction of lost property items will now be used to give blind and low-vision people the chance to read physical books once again.
At last year’s annual Brisbane Airport’s Lost Property Charity Auction, more than $17,600 was raised from selling off items that were left behind in the airport terminals.
Unclaimed items found at the airport are generally held for several months as the team works to find the owner, but after 60 days most items will go under the hammer at the annual online Lost Property Auction.
Last year’s event had suitcases, jewellery, laptops, headphones, surfboards, artwork and even a circular saw up for grabs.
The Brisbane Airport Corporation then handed all of the $17,699.80 of proceeds to The Courier-Mail Children’s Fund, which on Wednesday donated all of it to Braille House.
“We are very proud of our continued partnership with The Courier-Mail Children’s Fund, and the team at Brisbane Airport Corporation is delighted to know the funds we’ve raised are going to support the critical work of Braille House,” Brisbane Airport chief executive Gert-Jan de Graaff said.
The charity works to help build literacy skills in blind and vision impaired people by transcribing, reprinting and rebinding books in braille format.
Braille House general manager Richard Barker said the generous donation would help print 25 more books for its lending library as well as update the software it uses to convert to braille.
“It’s incredible,” Mr Barker said. “It’s hard to define how much it means, but to get such a wonderful donation like that will allow us to look at the software programs and just help us to produce more braille books.
“We operate to empower people who are blind and vision-impaired to be literate, and having access to books is key to that happening.”
The transcribed and reprinted books are then added to their library, which Mr Barker said allowed it to be used multiple times by community members, making it more than just a “one-off book”.
“We have the ability to learn from e-books, but you don’t learn literacy from e-books,” he said.
“If we can help more people to live independently, the outcomes for the community are so strong.”
For Laura Garcia, whose 10-year-old daughter Eva contracted viral encephalitis just after her first birthday, damaging her vision, Braille House gives her the opportunity to be at the same reading level as her peers.
“She wants to read Harry Potter and The Baby-Sitters Club, and Braille House has made that possible,” she said.
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