AUDIO FEATURE

SCRIPT

Nadine Afify

Multimedia Writing | Dr Amina Zaineldin

Interviewer: Nadine Ehab Afify
Interviewee: Mohamed Ehab Afify
Date: April 1, 2022
Topic: Project Impactive
Title: The IMPACT of an Egyptian student in the UK

Lead

This audio documentary aims to shed light on the life and the concept of disabled people while

relating to an interview done to Mohamed Afify, the founder of Project Impactive. Mohamed Afify

is an Egyptian student who decided to start an organization in a different country than his home

country besides his studying to help disabled people and to design materials to serve them by

motivating other students from different majors to volunteer to be able to fulfill any need. He

started this organization which is called Project Impactive when he was in UCL university in UK.

This organization purpose was to leave an impact in others’ lives, so the organization aim was to

help people who have disabilities to make their lives better an easier by using engineering students

to apply what they have learned.

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 Script
Disabled people are people who have an illness, injury or a condition that limits how they

can live their lives especially if it is difficult for them to move around.

According to scope UK, there were 14.1 million disabled people in the UK in 2020, and they

are still increasing till now and their average costs per month is more than the normal

average with about 600 Esterline.

Therefore, an Egyptian student who studies in UK decided to make an organization called

Project Impactive to help disabled people in UK. After interviewing him, I found that

Mohamed Afify the founder of Project Impactive got influenced to start the organization

after a coincidence that happened to him in London.

MA: “I was walking in the supermarket, and I saw a woman who had sat on her wheelchair
and because she was using both her hands to move her wheelchair, she had no way to police
her back. So she had to put it around her neck. And I was able to see how heavy the bag was
and how hard it was for her to actually get to manage all of this at the same time.” (0:36)

In the year of this story, 32% of disabled people and 22% of non-disabled people felt that

there was a lot of prejudice around disability.

Thus, Project Impactive plan was based on students volunteering, as it offers a wealth of

personal and educational benefits, in order to educate new generations to increase empathy

and to decrease the prejudice percentage.

MA: “To relate to them and I tried to tell them, okay, you guys were trying to build
something for people. We're trying to actually motivate each other to use what we've learned
for the benefit of others.” (4:16)

Seeing someone suffering from a disease that has no treatment could break hearts, so what

about the feeling of the person disabled himself!? That is why, it is always effective and

beneficial to have such organizations like Project Impactive that could help in making

people’s lives better.

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 MA: “Someone who was diagnosed by multiple sclerosis, and her symptoms were basically
that the right side of her body doesn't really support her weight when she's on a wheelchair
and she can actually fall out of the wheelchair just because she cannot keep herself straight.
And what we were able to do is we were able to modify her chair so that she can actually sit
still and operate whenever she's on a wheelchair so that she doesn't fall out.” (6:32)

There is no cure for multiple sclerosis. Treatment usually focuses on reducing the time it

takes to recover from attacks, delaying the disease's progression, and managing MS

symptoms and that is why helping in the success of modifying a chair for this disease could

be a reason in changing someone’s life.

MA: “You can always underestimate how much you can do and how much you can impact
others lives. But if you take it one step at the time and see what you're good at and what you
can potentially leverage to help other people, I think this would definitely surprise so many
people. So just just being able to leverage what you learn and make other people's lives quite
different.” (8:51)

We are hoping that many students start several organizations that serve the community all

over the world even if it seems hard at the beginning because

“The best sight comes after the hardest climb!”

And, finally, Be the change you want to see in the world!

Nadine Afify, A-U-C Radio.

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 Citations

Disability facts and figures: Disability charity scope UK. Scope. (n.d.). Retrieved April 14, 2022,
from https://www.scope.org.uk/media/disability-facts-figures/

Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2022, January 7). Multiple sclerosis.
Mayo Clinic. Retrieved April 14, 2022, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
conditions/multiple-sclerosis/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20350274

Ruth Lupton Visiting Professor, & Polina Obolenskaya Research Officer. (2019, November
19). The true size of Theresa May's Social Justice Challenge. The Conversation. Retrieved
April 14, 2022, from https://theconversation.com/the-true-size-of-theresa-mays-social-
justice-challenge-66577