Ho Chi Minh City (Fides Service) - At last blind people in Vietnam can read the Gospels in Braille, thanks to a formidable undertaking on the part Anthony Nguyen Quoc Phong aged 45, a blind Catholic who spent ten years translating Scripture into Braille. Anthony lost his sight in a car accident in 1991. He set out to translate some of the Bible into Braille after talking to a priest. In 2001 he completed the translation of the four Gospels. He then worked on the Book of Psalms and a book called Five loaves and two fish, by the late Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan.
So far 160 copies have been printed of the Braille edition of the Gospels with 700 pages and the psalms 516 pages in Vietnamese. Eight copies cost 1,000oo Euro to print. The funds come from a local Translation Group and from the International Bible Society in London. A team of students built the IT programme to reproduce Vietnamese in Braille. Anthony was assisted with proof reading in Braille by blind students living in the house for the blind in which he resides. The next task Anthony intends to undertake is the translation of some liturgical texts and parts of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Anna Tran Thu Thuy, a blind girl who lives at a House for Disabled in Ho Chi Minh City, says she is "happy to be able to read the Gospel. Up to now I could only listen to it when someone else read it or when I heard it on Radio Veritas ". The feat has been acclaimed by many. The Sisters Lovers of the Cross told UCA News that "this work is truly precious".
Braille, invented by Louis Braille (1809-1852), is a system of representing letters and figures by raised dots for use by the blind. It was introduced in Vietnam in 1898 and taught for the first time in a Vietnamese school for the blind in 1903. (Fides Service 31/1/2003)