We started our journey with the slogan, Together we can. After road rolling for more than two decades, as we sat to discuss and debate our future preparations; one cannot hide the nostalgic feelings on everyone’s faces. After all, me, Santanu, Tunka, Joyprakash, Tanmay , to name a few have all travelled through time, braved adverse conditions, and kept our spirits high to keep our commitment to the society. We started with the slogan, Yes, we can. Today, I can proudly say, yes, we did.
Our close school friend died of drug addiction. He became an addict right after passing out from school and ultimately succumbed. The incident shook us and we declared a war against drugs. As we went down the memory lane, we remember those days were hard and tough. We spent our pocket money, travelled in buses and taxis to organize Anti Drug awareness programmes in schools, colleges, slums, Medical camps in backward areas. We are fortunate to have had several eminent doctors of Kolkata and even abroad attending Medical camps. We are extremely happy to share with our well wishers that the world’s biggest body against drugs, WFAD have incorporated IMPACT, in the international body. It’s a great achievement and acknowledgement of our hard work and dedicated war against drugs. WFAD is affiliated with Unite Nations. We say with pride that Impact has been able to spread wings internationally in few European and South Asian countries. If we started our journey with war against drugs, we were also determined to stop incidence of Fire during our favourite Durga Puja festival in Kolkata. We lacked resources, but with grit and determination we took upon the herculean task of generating awareness among Puja organizers about the need to adopt Fire safety norms. We started from scratch and I am proud to share that Impact Sharad Ananda has completed 25 years and there has not been a single incident of fire during Durga Puja over the last few years. Dignitaries from all over the world, diplomats, ambassadors, politicians, and Ministers from foreign countries have blessed us with their visit to our programme.
We dedicate this year’s puja to campaign for environment and anti pollution. Our endeavour is to ensure green puja and war against plastic.