VERIZON PARTNERS WITH AFB FOR THREE-YEAR NATIONAL CAMPAIGN

The following information was prepared for (summer 2002) AFB News and is used with permission.

Verizon Corporation, one of the world's leading providers of communications services, is partnering with AFB for a three-year national campaign to promote a new college-based career (braille textbook transcriber) and improve literacy for America's blind and low-vision schoolchildren.

The National Campaign for Literacy, Textbooks, Transcribers and Technology is a broad-based public awareness and advocacy program that will promote the new career at the federal and state levels, and raise general awareness of the needs of blind and low-vision schoolchildren for timely access to textbooks and learning materials. Erik Weihenmayer, who has captured the nation's heart as the first blind mountain climber to summit Mount Everest, has agreed to serve as the national spokesperson for the campaign. The kick-off for the National Campaign will be held in Washington D.C. on October 3.

"Erik had a goal but required the right tools to reach the summit," said Andrew Brown, executive director of public affairs programs for Verizon Communications. "Millions of Americans today do not have the required tools to reach their goals; they can't read. Verizon's commitment to literacy is about ensuring that everyone, sighted or not, has the tools to reach the top and attain their goals."

According to Mary Ann Siller, national program associate in education for AFB and the coordinator of the National Campaign, "Through Verizon's generous philanthropic support and active partnership in this program, we will make a profound difference in children's lives as this career becomes a reality across the country."

The AFB Textbooks and Instructional Materials Solutions Forum, in conjunction with AFB's National Education Programs and National Literacy Center, has taken a leadership role in attacking the critical shortage of braille transcribers and offering new skills to current braille transcribers. In May 2001, the AFB Solutions Forum began an important and revolutionary project to define a new occupation as a braille textbook transcriber. AFB, Northwest Vista College in San Antonio, Texas, and the Texas Education Agency have built a partnership to develop a new profession through a curriculum and a series of college courses. The curriculum will be piloted this summer at Northwest Vista College in San Antonio, Texas, and will be introduced in community colleges across the country over the next three years.

The National Campaign focuses on transcribers, textbooks, literacy and technology. A trained and credentialed braille textbook transcriber will practice his or her career via technology - receiving electronic publishers' files to the desktop, transcribing those files electronically, and returning the transcribed materials to the state authorized entity for textbook distribution. The career can be practiced anywhere the telecommunications infrastructure is accessible.