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Sabriye Tenberken was born in Cologne in Germany. At age 12 she became blind. She studied Central Asian Sciences at Bonn University. In addition to Mongolian and modern Chinese, she studied modern and classical Tibetan in combination with sociology and philosophy. As no blind student had ever before ventured to enroll in these kind of studies, she could not fall back on the experiences of anyone else  and had to develop her own methods in order to follow her course of studies. Out of this need, Sabriye developed the Tibetan Braille Script. Sabriye initiated the project for the blind in Tibet and is the co-founder and co-director of Braille Without Borders. Next to fundraising and communication with official and sponsor organisations she is responsible for the development of the curricula, training of teachers and trainers and initially she also taught blind children herself. %u201CMy path leads to Tibet, Tashis neue Welt, Das siebte Jahr.

Sabriye is also the author of three books: "My path leads to Tibet" tells the history of the project and about the way Sabriye dealt with becoming blind. The book has been published in 12 languages (English version: Arcade Publishing house, New York). More infos on this book click here. Further she wrote Tashis neue Welt and the latest book is titled Das siebte Jahr ("The seventh year") which tells the story of Sabriyes and Paul's seventh year in Tibet.

Before Tenberken went to Lhasa, there was no Braille system for the Tibetan language. After studying Tibetology at Germany%u2019s Bonn University, Sabriye Temberken was inspired to create the system that is now used to educate blind people in Tibet.

I learned the Tibetan writing system through a little machine which is called Opticon, she explained. Its a camera you push over a piece of paper and everything that is black and white is transferred into impulses. I could read the actual letters with my hands.

But I had to create this Braille system in order to be able to read wherever I wanted to, without the machine, so I created a system that is based on the six-dotBraille system and constructed with the general rules of the Tibetan syllable script and it is a script that is one-to-one translatable and later it became the officialBraille script for the Tibetan language.

From outcasts to self-confident members of society

In her interview at Deutsche Welle, Tenberken made it seem as if her endeavors to change society%u2019s view of blind people were an effortless undertaking.

When I first came to Tibet, blind people were outcast. They were not taken seriously in society. In fact, people thought blind people were possessed by demons. I met parents that didnt want to touch their own children.

I think nowadays that the picture has changed. People see blind people running around with their white canes in Lhasa city but also in Chigata city. They see them being very full of confidence. They are very educated and they are capable of contributing in a meaningful way to society.

Tenberken has received numerous awards, including the Mother Teresa Award and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

An avid lover of horseback riding and a Himalayan mountaineer, Tenberken is proof that having a vision has nothing to do with eyesight. But, she said, though there are some who would disagree, she would rather leave one thing to people who can see operating motor vehicles.