This contest was created with the hope of establishing a bridge for the visually impaired between the worlds of braille and sound. Our call for entries went out in March, 2007(or later, depending on the region). We subsequently received 88 essays from within Japan; 23 from six countries in the Asia-Pacific region; 40 from eleven countries in the Middle East and Central and Southern Asia regions; and 62 from nineteen counties in the inaugural Europe region. We are truly grateful for all the moving essays we received in this contest.
This year, as usual, we are donating a Japanese or English version of a braille book containing all the prize-winning essays to relevant groups in participating regions, as well as to community groups for the visually impairedin other countries around the world. This way, the wave of emotions can spread out even further.
