Amina Orzueva was warming up up her fingers in the hopes of taking first place in the NYC Braille Challenge.
The annual competition, which is in its eighth year, puts dozens of braille users to the test.
Organizers said around 50 students took part this year in the NYC Braille Challenge.
What You Need To Know
- Roughly 50 students took part in the NYC Braille Challenge on Sunday
- Organizers say a brailler is a tool that is similar to a pen and paper for braille users
- Amina Orzueva, 15, is legally blind and came to the United States in 2013. She appreciates the city school’s resources for braille users
- The winners head to nationals in Los Angeles to compete against the top students in United States, Canada and United Kingdom
“I think the Braille Challenge is very important and I’m so glad it exists. It highlights Braille and the importance of it,” Orzueva said Sunday morning at the John F. Kennedy School in Queens.
Orzueva, 15, who is legally blind, has participated every year — two years after she immigrated here from Uzbekistan.
“In Uzbekistan, I could not go to a public school, so it was nice to go to public school in New York. I feel like there is so much opportunity here,” she said.
As a junior at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn, one of her other ambitions, besides heading to nationals, is to graduate and study criminology at Barnard College.
“She is such a wonderful learner. She is very good at self advocating and she is very motivated,” Jonathan Hopper, the coordinator of NYC Braille Challenge and Orzueva’s former teacher.
Students of different ages and levels participated during the event.
“Younger students are taking spelling tests and doing different things and then the older students might be listening to an audio of a passage and braille it to try to braille very fast. Or interpreting a tactile graphic,” Hopper said.
The students compete at the city level, and the winners will move onto Nationals.
But regardless of how a student will place, students and families train for this day all year-round and organizers try to make each year bigger and better.
“You never know what on earth me and a group of teachers are going to put together. It’s a blast,” Hopper said.
This year, the NYPD marching band performed to wish students good luck.
Orzueva said she may want to advance to the next level, but for her it is also about the friendships and sense of community.
“I get to see my friends that I don’t go to throughout the school year because we go to different schools. I also get to see my old teachers,” Orzueva said.
Nationals is in California and students go up against the best in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.