A STUDENT campaign to encourage restaurants to provide menus in Braille for visually impaired customers has been backed by restaurateur Derry Clarke and the Restaurant Association of Ireland.
The Young Social Innovators project by students in Cashel Community School is working with the National Council of the Blind in Ireland (NCBI) to encourage restaurants to provide accessible menus for people with visual impairment.
As well as Braille, they are encouraging restaurants to provide menus on audio and in a clear-print format.
Student Declan Burgess said a pack providing the three versions of the menu would cost €70 from the NCBI. “It’s not a lot of money,” he said, but it would make a huge difference. He hoped the “Do you want Braille with that?” campaign would go nationwide.
Derry Clarke of the Michelin-starred L’Ecrivain restaurant met the students last week and said he was very impressed.
“I’m really delighted to see young people doing something like that and following through on it,” he said. “I have the menu. It’s a good thing and it’s the right thing to do.”
He was also pleased to see that the NCBI could provide updates to the menus very quickly.
Lina Kouzi, manager of NCBI’s library and media centre, said it would love to see more restaurants taking up the service. “It creates independence for people who can ask for their own menu and not have to get someone to read it out to them.”
Transition year teacher Cáitríona Ryan said up to 15 restaurants in Cashel had already expressed interest in the project.
