Restaurant Just Pizza and Pasta introduces Braille menus on the Isle of Man. Featuring three interviews from the owner Mitch Sorbie, Founder of Dot & Type Natasha Molyneux- Smith. Samantha Jade Ash also gives her perspective from a person who has visual impairments, and how this affects her.
00:00So I'm Natasha Mullaney-Smith and I'm the founder of Dot and Type, which is a braille and large print transcription service and a consultancy service as well.
00:10I previously worked in education for seven years, part of the vision support service, and in that time I was working with a young lady.
00:19I worked with her from year four to year 11, so in that space of time I saw where there was huge gaps in her life, from access to things like menus, party invites, birthday cards, and it was that kind of stuff that really led me to create Dot and Type, where I was seeing that access needed to be available.
00:43Well, I think it's important to be inclusive of everyone. We have a temporary ramp that we can put down for people that need wheelchair access, and a number of years ago we did large print menus for people that are partially sighted, and I just think it's very unfair that people that are totally blind are excluded from the restaurant.
01:08So hence the reason when I saw a post online about Tasha starting a new business, I thought, wow, that's exactly what I need to do. I've been looking for someone to do this for a long time, so let's help a local business, a new business, and let's help a local people that are either partially sighted that read braille or are fully blind and they require braille.
01:30So for me, it just makes sense, you know, if someone's coming into the restaurant, they pick up a menu and they look at what they want to order, and there's like huge joy in that, it's a good social situation, you're with your family, you're with your friends, but to be able to come into a restaurant and not see that, to have someone read a menu out for you or use technology in a really loud and busy environment,
01:56it just doesn't seem right that just because you've got a visual impairment means that you don't have access to simple text.
02:04They'll just say to us, you know, I'm partially sighted or I am blind, please could I have the relevant menus? So people just ask for them and we give them with a smile.
02:15It was incredible that Mitch, like, thank you for giving me this opportunity to make the menus for you. It's just grateful that Mitch reached out and he also saw the importance of this, you know, to me, it's something that can be done, it's so simple, the process was easy.
02:33Mitch literally just contacted me and I was like, yeah, send over your menus and I'll make them into braille for you, you know, you don't have to know braille yourself.
02:40I even produce a transcription version of the braille menu because sometimes you need to tweak bits and pieces to make it legible and easier to read for someone who's visually impaired.
02:52And so, yeah, so the servers will be able to see how the braille menu is laid out as well.
02:57So my name is Samantha Jade Ash. I'm 32 years old. I'm totally blind. I have been since birth.
03:04Oh, it's brilliant. I mean, you go into a restaurant nowadays and they plunk a menu in front of you and you can't read it.
03:15I mean, there are various technologies out there like seeing AI, meta classes, Ally, which is kind of AI based.
03:26But you shouldn't have to get those out in a restaurant. You should be able to be given the menu.
03:32You can open it, look at what's there and go, oh, I think I'll have lasagna or I think I'll have, you know, so and then you can look at the different flavours like margherita, you know, or something like that or pepperoni and different things.
03:48And you should be able to do that via reading the braille. You shouldn't have to get all your various bits of technology out just to read it like your phone because they rely on the internet.
03:59So you need something that doesn't rely on the internet and braille is brilliant.
04:05And it would be fantastic. You know, imagine if we could on the Isle of Man could have all our restaurants with braille menus.
04:13Then you'll have people from the UK and all over the world coming over to an accessible island.
Be the first to comment