Indore Restaurant Introduces Braille Menus For Visually Impaired Children

One of the foremost difficulties faced by visually impaired individuals when dining in restaurants is the challenge of reading menus. This issue is particularly prominent because restaurants commonly offer printed menus with small text and often lack braille alternatives.

Recognizing the longstanding challenge, a restaurant in Indore has taken a proactive step by offering menu cards in Braille script, empowering visually impaired customers to order their meals independently.

The initiative was launched at Gurkripa restaurant in the city on Saturday.

On the occasion, some visually impaired children from 'Mahesh Drishtihin Kalyan Sangh', were invited at the restaurant on Saturday. The children placed their orders themselves after going through the menu card inscribed in Braille script.

This initiative was launched by the Confederation of Indian Industry's Young Indians group, which came up with this idea after meeting some restaurant operators.

Speaking to new agency ANI, Young Indian Group Chairperson Bhavna Ganediwal said, "We have called visually impaired children from Mahesh Drishtihin Kalyan Sangh to treat them at the restaurant here. We had provided Braille-script menu cards for them at the restaurant. These Braille script cards will be kept here in this restaurant from today on for blind people."

"We have specially ordered this Braille script card from Chandigarh. We will be sending 10 such cards to other restaurants. All these restaurants have agreed to have Braille script menu cards," she added.

Speaking about the visually impaired customers at the restaurant, Ganediwal said, "Visually impaired people will gain confidence and will have self-respect knowing that they will not be dependent on anyone for ordering food at the restaurant. We intend to start this initiative in other cities as well."

Speaking to ANI, the owner of Gurkripa restaurant, Simran Bhatia Sharma, said, "They Young Indians Group had contacted us and asked us to make menu cards in Braille script. We felt very good about this. We did not have such a facility until now. Nor did we ever think about this. We are going to start this initiative in all our seven restaurants. Today, when we saw children placing orders by reading the menu card in Braille, we felt very happy. Every restaurant owner should start this initiative."

One of the visually impaired students, Raksha Jogi, told ANI, "Today we ordered our food here by reading the menu card in Braille script. We felt that we were not dependent on anyone else. Earlier, when I went to the restaurant, my family members used to read out the menu card to me so that I could order. Today I ordered my own food. Restaurants in every city and village should have menu cards like this in Braille script."

Anatibala Porwal, a class 12 student, told ANI, "I had never felt so proud of myself before. I had never imagined this. Today I read the menu card myself and ordered food. All the visually impaired people in the world should get this kind of facility."