The History of Compass Braille
Between 1978-1985, 2 of the founders, Tony & Rona Gibb worked in India among people with visual disabilities. Hindi and Tamil Braille New Testaments had been produced but in other Indian languages there were, at the most, only 1 or 2 Gospels and English Braille was not widely known. So in 1990 to address the need for Braille Bibles in Indian languages, Compass Braille was established.
The photograph above shows the outside of the Methodist Chapel in Devon where the work of Compass Braille began.
A retired professor, Don Rogers, came on board and wrote a computer program to convert Hindi script into Braille code. This enabled the work to begin but because Bible texts were rarely computerised volunteers were found to type various languages onto computer and others simultaneously proof-read the work.
Soon after, Steve Brown joined Compass Braille and he became the first Production Manager. He oversaw the installation of the Braillos (pictured) and produced the first ever computerised Braille Bible volumes in Hindi for India. Colin Dowling served as CEO from 2002 to 2023. During this time Compass Braille relocated to Ware, Hertfordshire.
In 2023 we moved to our current address, Torch House in Leicestershire (pictured), the home of Torch Trust for the Blind. As was the case in all the previous locations, volunteers come into the press each week to help with production.
Please explore the rest of our web site to discover how Compass Braille has developed and what it does today.