We realized that classic 6-pin (3x2) building bricks have the same pattern as the braille alphabet. Then we simply made small modifications to the pins, and voilà: We’ve built an entire braille alphabet. All this without losing the characteristics of the toy. The building bricks are still building bricks. But now, with the peculiarity of being a letter, they make learning playful, simple, and fun. how Braille Bricks came about. A toy for literacy and inclusion of blind children, since it allows them to play normally with other children, learning and teaching braille.

We tested it with the children at the Dorina Nowill Foundation, and now that the tool has proven effective and potential, we want to convince a toy manufacturer to embrace the idea and produce Braille Bricks on a large scale, so that it can help children around the world. We are counting on the help from the whole

We used 6-pin (3x2) building bricks found at any toy store. Then, since the braille alphabet follows the same pattern of pins, we removed some of the pieces to obtain the letters. The bricks were crafted one by one in order to maintain the characteristics of the toy: Fit, colors, and functionality. You look at one of them and still see the classic, unmistakable design of the building bricks. What we did was to add a new element: the alphabet. The bricks, besides stimulating the imagination and inclusion, assist in tactile and motor development, which are extremely important for a blind child. Today, there are around 2,000 bricks, distributed into learning kits, which help around 300 children at the Dorina Nowill Foundation and dozens of other institutions.

Our goal was to raise awareness around the Braille Bricks project, reaching as many people as possible. As a result, in just 3 days we achieved 18.8MM organic impacts on Twitter and Facebook.

The Dorina Nowill Foundation is the foremost Brazilian NGO for support to people with visual impairments, and Braille Bricks is presented as a playful educational project capable of not only increase awareness of the institution's causes, but also of providing a tool for learning and social integration.

The transformative potential of Braille Bricks make it a product with a wide reach, for all the institutions, schools, and families that deal with children with visual impairments. To that end, the product has been made available through the Creative Commons license, free of charge, for development by any toy manufacturer.

The video is the main element for sharing the campaign, supported by online tools for changing avatars to images of the supporters' initials and for creating personalized messages, both with Braille Bricks. All of this is brought together on a website specially developed to aggregate the elements and explain the campaign to the public.

In Brazil, there are not many options for special materials for education of blind children. The majority needs to be adapted by parents and teachers. In addition, these materials do not encourage the inclusion of these students. Schools are not prepared to tend to blind and non-blind students at the same time, which ends up creating a difference in teaching method during the activities in the classroom.

From the Piaget treatises on cognitive learning to the modern 'Playful Learning Center' of the University of Helsinki, there is now scientific and academic consensus on the importance of games and playfulness for learning and child development.

The Dorina Nowill Foundation for the Blind, whose work is aimed at inclusion, sought an innovative resource that would help toward this goal and improve life for the visually impaired and those around them, in a real way.