Francis Forbes, Advisor - Crime, Security and Liaison, CARICOM IMPACS, sat down for an interview when he visited Project Ploughshares' Waterloo office in October.
Project Ploughshares: Can you tell me about IMPACs?
IMPACS' project promotes media as the key pillar in the creation of democratic institutions, as a vehicle for women to articulate their views and disseminate their message and as a means for peacebuilding and reconciliation.
In Afghanistan, IMPACS has strengthened the country's first independent radio station; helped establish the first women's community radio station in Mazar-e-Sharif, which was followed by 3 more stations in Herat, Kunduz and Maimana; and launched the first independent women's political newspaper.
IMPACS is a not-of-profit charitable organization committed to the expansion and protection of democracy and the strengthening of civil society.
With the vision and commitment of groups like
IMPACS and Sustain, we can hope that truth and ecology will triumph over corporate greenwash.
CollaGenex is developing a series of novel, proprietary compounds known as
IMPACS (Inhibitors of Multiple Proteases And CytokineS) to address these applications.
In her statement during the opening session, the Executive Director of IMPACS, Lynne Anne Williams, noted:
Following his presentation of data on the alarming rise in firearms violence in CARICOM countries (see Figure 1), Francis Forbes, Director of IMPACS Liaison Office, outlined programs that the Caribbean Community has established in response.
"The CCRA guidelines continue to restrict charities to treating symptoms, not seeking solutions," said
IMPACS Executive Director Shauna Sylvester.
After consulting with many charitable organizations, the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society,
IMPACS, put forward proposals for changes that would enable charities to spend more than the current limit (10% of budget) on advocacy and lobbying, without losing their charitable status.
Liberal MP John Bryden, author of Canada's Charities: A Call for Legislation, has called the
IMPACS proposal "symptomatic of a $90-billion industry seized by self-interest and greed." Lifting the 10-per-cent rule would be a return to the "bad old days" of the 1980s when an incestuous relationship existed between government-funded charities and non-profits and government bureaucrats, he wrote in the Globe and Mail.
