Story By Keith Barnard-Jones

The Island and Royal Manor of Portland Rotary Club

One day a young man was walking in India with Pandit Nehru, and they were ​discussing the variety of avoidable disabilities in the population. John Wilson, ​later Rotarian Sir John Wilson, decided that something should be done about ​this.

It was John who founded the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind, later ​known as Sightsavers, and it was he who was responsible for founding the ​IMPACT Foundation in 1985 - a real man of vision, which is an odd thing to say for ​John had been blinded by a chemistry accident while only in his teens.

The mission statement of IMPACT says that no one should become, or remain, ​needlessly disabled through disease, lack of knowledge or shortage of medical ​services. The aim of the trust is to “take action today to prevent disabilities ​tomorrow”. Simple but very descriptive phrases which explains IMPACT’s aims ​with many similarities to Rotary.

Children are still losing their sight or becoming disabled in some way because of ​parasites or infections, or because their mothers were malnourished or ​unvaccinated. Disabilities often prevent schooling, employment and bring ​discrimination, so the victims become trapped in a web of poverty.

When Peter Offer was the Rotary Great Britain & Ireland for 2004-2005, one of ​the projects he asked Rotarians to support was the IMPACT Foundation. I ​volunteered to represent Rotary on their Advisory Council, and then as a Trustee ​for the last 20 years.

Though started in the UK, there are locally run IMPACTS in many lower-income ​countries, where the need is perhaps greatest. There was a television ​programme about The Rainbow Train (IMPACT India’s Lifeline Express) which ​goes to remote villages in India with medical teams to provide care where there ​is no other help available. The TV chef and The Great British Bake Off winner, ​Nadiya Hussain, made a TV appeal on our behalf in 2021.

You may have heard of the floating hospital, Jibon Tari, which serves under-​resourced villages along the riverbanks of Bangladesh. It is called taking the ​hospital to the people. But IMPACT works in hospitals, clinics and health camps ​as well, whether it be in Asia, East Africa, Zanzibar, Cambodia, or Nepal. IMPACT ​empowers people and communities with skills and knowledge to improve their ​health. Sadly, in many areas of many countries, Impact provides the only ​available care to those in need.

I spent a day on the Jibon Tari watching a young surgeon operating every 15 ​minutes on someone with cataracts, starting at 7am until 9pm with just a short ​break for lunch. He told me he had operated on 3,000 patients which meant ​3,000 people had returned to their families to work again.

IMPACT’s plastic surgeons also enable children with cleft lips and palates to ​undergo reconstructive operations so that they may overcome physical ​challenges and thrive within their communities again. And orthopaedic surgeons ​to help people to walk again.

ENT surgeons to give people back their hearing, and we train midwives to reduce ​the mortality and morbidity figures in a lot of small communities. Along with all ​this goes the provision of safe drinking water and sanitation for those in need. As ​with Rotary, if someone needs help, IMPACT is there.

Much of IMPACT’s work is educational – local health workers teach villagers to ​grow green vegetables to prevent blindness, helping them to identify ailments in ​the early stages, giving immunisations to prevent diseases, helping to stop ​malnutrition, and much, much more.

I became hooked on IMPACT because it was like Rotary in so many ways. But I ​am getting older, and my time as a Trustee is now coming towards an end. So we ​are looking for a volunteer/volunteers to replace me and support IMPACT for the ​next generation.

To find out more about the IMPACT Foundation visit: impact.org.uk.

If you would like to know more, contact me at: kbeejay13@gmail.com, or ​phone: 0777 1904773.