Day 4: Impact India in the Thane District

I was definitely excited to hear our itinerary had changed and we would be visiting rural communities three hours north of Mumbai. I’ve always been very interested in the cultural differences of rural and urban communities. In college, I worked in an extremely rural Head Start in Ohio’s Appalachian community. Some of the kids traveled 2 hours on the bus to get to pre-school and were very isolated from any other way of life. I saw a lot of similarities between the tribal communities of the Thane District in India and the Appalachian families I worked with in Ohio. One of the main similarities between these two culturally different rural areas is the strong sense of pride as a community. There’s an automatic safety net built in that isn’t as present in urban areas. I think this allows for great opportunity in rural communities as far as health and prevention initiatives because having an established network of support is crucial in educating and promoting health throughout a community.

During our three-hour drive north, we were provided a thorough introduction to all that Impact India is involved in throughout the entire country. Of all the different organizations we’ve read about in class and visited throughout the trip, Impact India was definitely the most impressive. Their mission statement reads: To initiate, augment, and intensify action against those causes of massively prevalent disablement for which there exists a potential for prevention and control, which can be delivered through existing delivery systems and available infrastructure. To treat millions of people who are disabled by curable blindness, deafness and physical handicaps and facial deformities. Through a great example of public/private partnership, Impact India partnered with the Indian railways to make the “The Magic Train of India” or the Lifeline Express a reality.

The Lifeline Express is the world’s first hospital on a train that brings medical services to disabled people living in the impoverished rural communities throughout India. I think what made Impact so impressive to me was in conjunction with the surgical services provided on the train, they’ve established Community Health centers in these rural areas that focus on prevention. Impact is taking that next step necessary to allow these communities to one day provide their own health care with programs that work to prevent illness and disability. The end goal of Impact India is for the Lifeline Express to become obsolete and these community health centers will be the driving force behind reaching that goal.