Check it out!

A Neil Squire Program

We went to a Zoom meeting where Makers Making Change were presenting. It was amazing and helpful. Their web site is:https://makersmakingchange.com/

“Our guiding vision at Neil Squire is to achieve economic and social inclusiveness for all people with disabilities. To support this vision, Makers Making Change leverages the capacity of community based Makers, Disability Professionals and Volunteers to develop and deliver affordable Open Source Assistive Technologies.”

They have a catalogue of devices for disabled people but also they help with making things to solve a problem. The prices are much lower because you only pay for materials and shipping costs. Go and check it out!! 

April News

April is an important month for people of many different faiths. We wish everyone a Happy Easter (Christian), Happy Pesach (Judaism), Ramadan Mubarak (Muslim), and Happy Vaisakhi (Sikhism).

April is also Christine’s birthday month – we wish her a very Happy Birthday on April 28!

She would be happy to get email birthday wishes from her friends in the Bliss i-Band!

Sunflower

In the beginning the sunflower was a very tiny seed,

But in the soil it started growing quickly

And  so it was with me, too.

When I got to learn bliss symbols

I wanted to talk a lot.

I think it is the same for many children 

Who cannot talk with their mouth.

I did not understand those who asked:

Was  it hard being a child?

Because when I was little

I didn´t know how it felt talking. 

When I look back in time

I feel like a sunflower

Because I like to learn the bliss symbols quickly.

Now the Sunflower has started to flourish

It is the same with my life.

Sunflower was written by Leo Leppälä, from Finland. He shared his poem at our Canadian Faces meeting on March 27 with the help of Gitta Lönnqvist, his speech therapist and Bliss instructor when he was younger,

Leo wrote Sunflower in 1993 when he spent 2 years in Sweden at FURUBODA. At that time, Leo used the Finnish BLISS MASTER software. Leo has written many poems in Bliss since then and has published a book of his poems.

The version that appears below was made with BLISSONLINE (with Swedish glosses).

We thank Leo for expressing his thoughts so well in Bliss!

From Leo’s friend, Gitta Lönnqvist

It was nice to see Sunflower on the web! I only just the other day learnt that sunflower is the national flower of Ukraina. I hope it gives the same strength to the people in Ukraina as it has given to Leo!

ANIMATION with Blissymbols

film (cylinder + camera [enclosure + light {eye + sun}]) + pencil: film on which images are drawn

Julie Millar and Shirley McNaughton have had some fun looking at the ways in which Blissymbols have been animated through the decades. They have chosen three examples and made three short videos to demonstrate them. Enjoy!

Playing with Blissymbols

This video (3:48 minutes) is taken from the film, “Mr. Symbol Man”, produced by The National Film Board of Canada and Film Australia in 1974. It shows children playing with felt Blissymbols at the McGill Family Centre before being shown the film “Symbol Boy”. After seeing the film, one little girl is asked to name the felt symbols. See how many symbols she learned, just though seeing the film once!

Learning with Bliss

This video (2:17 minutes) is taken from the film “Take the Time”, produced for Rogers Community Mississauga Productions in 1995. It includes the Blissymbols for seeing, talking, hearing, walking, being introduced, followed by and Shayne Dennis using the combine strategy when communicating with his teacher, Barbara Rush in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Music with Bliss

This video (2:23 minutes) is taken from “Celebrating 50 Years of Bliss” produced by Blissymbolics Communication Institute – Canada in 2021. It shows Blissymbols accompanying the “Blissymbols Alphabet Song”, animated by Julie Millar and sung by Aaron Lightstone. Julie is editor of narrative videos produced by Blissymbolics Communication Institute – Canada, through funding by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Resilient Communities Fund 2021. Aaron is music director of the Bliss I-Band, a project of Blissymbolics Communication Institute – Canada.