Imtiaz Sooliman – at AIE2023
AI: Summary ©
The challenges faced by South Africa during the COVID-19 crisis, including job losses, high inflation, and poor economic conditions, underscore the need for change and helping people outside of the country. The speakers also emphasize the importance of infusing graduates' patriotism and compassion into their country, as well as the need for education systems for children and teachers to ensure adequate staff and teachers. The speakers thank people for their contributions and emphasize the importance of bringing more special education and energy use to schools, as well as water and toilet paper to ensure children have enough energy.
AI: Summary ©
Hear the genuineness in the voice of the person that speaks. And
that trend carried on throughout the year. And that's why 2020 was
one of our greatest years in terms of collection drive, when it was
one of the worst years for the country in terms of economics, job
losses, companies closing down, no economic activity, no export, no
import. And you could see people were very keen to do something
different. A man comes to the office and he says, Every year
I've been giving you a certain amount of money. This year I
haven't made any business for three months, not one cent in
three months, I'm going to give you four times the amount that I
gave you previously. Because he said, I'm suffering. What's
happening to the people outside and corporate South Africa said,
for the first time, we understand what pain and suffering is all
about, and we want to change our system. In 2021
when several unrest took place, you would think that the cockroach
would be angry because they lost shops, they lost malls, they lost
warehouses, they lost trucks and forklifts. Those are the first,
the guys who called first and said, we've lost everything, but
we want to help our our nation. And they the first ones who put
money down, and not small money, big money, came the floods. 11
April, 2022
that night, at half past five, the water rose eight meters in 45
minutes. And I thought the only calls I'm going to get is from
people in trouble. Want a boat, one helicopter. Want a diver, one
earth moving equipment. The boundary wall fell down, no such
thing. The only calls came from corporate South Africa and the
tiny right till 1am
they're not making business, they're not making profits,
they're not doing deals. They're giving away money. And they're
asking, What can we do to save our people. In this case, what do you
need? How can we help our people? And this carries a lot of weight,
considering that the suffer unless you think would anger people or
make them bitter, and yet, a year later, they're very willing to
make a meaningful intervention. That that spirit has continued,
but more and more corporates getting involved, and more
frequently, it's not like I gave you something on the first of
July. I'll see you next year on the first of July again. No, it's
more frequent now, because of virtual discussion, they call you
on Christmas day,
on newest day, on 31st December. We are holiday. We got free time.
We have to put that money into your account right now. 31st
December last year, we got calls from number of people. They want
bank details to put money into the into account. Now, let's be
honest, from first December, which South Africa works last year,
November we shut down, and it's been really heartening. And the
volume, and it's not only about the money, they're saying our
staff and us as a top management need to see what's happening on
the ground. We want to understand the pain of people, and that's
made a huge, huge difference. That's wonderful, but it's also
testament to the kind of work that you are doing. I've got a final
question for you on the issue of education, because we're sitting
here at the Graduate Institute of financial services stand today,
and this is an organization that is committed to ensuring that
future generations are educated. What do you think our education in
this country needs to be infused with in order for our children,
South African children, all children who are resident in South
Africa and who are learning in South Africa, in order for them to
be able to secure a future, we have to make kids patriotic. They
need to understand that this is their country. Yes, it has flaws
and has problems and has difficulties. How many countries
got that? So the first thing is to make them understand that you have
to be a patriot, and a patriot will do everything possible for
his or her country. Secondly, to infuse that patriotism, we need to
take care of the kids. We need an education system that has adequate
amount of teachers. Teachers not only are academically inclined,
but teachers who are spiritually inclined, who have compassion, who
have love. Because remember, a lot of the students come from very
damaged homes, alcoholic parents, parents not working, gender based
violence, friction in the house, no hunger, no food, you know, no
means of support. And they come from very, very broken homes, and
you find that they covered a lot of trauma. You can't do
educational
academics and learning, but if you haven't addressed a situation of
trauma. And so you need additional teachers so you don't have fossil
tickets in the class. In addition that, you need teachers who are
compassionate and caring. In addition to that, we need the old
system. In my time, it was called right, loving, I don't know what
other people call it, and where you taught subjects of value, of
principles you know, and how to behave in a correct manner. We
need to bring that back, but only, not only by bringing it back the
teachers and the management and the staff and the government body
has to live by what they teach. You have to be an example, and
parents have a huge role to play with that that you have made
example to your kids. The other thing that we we need to bring to
education is more special education needs teachers. There's
so many kids with learning disorders, they just want to fall
under.
Side, because nobody could take care of them. We don't have enough
of those specialists. We need to bring more of those into a normal
school system and call it full service school, which some schools
are like that. We need to bring that into the system as a
completely round of the school. You need sports facilities, you
know, to make the child have some energy used positively. Recently,
corporates, with us have been going and sponsoring astroturfs,
and that's making such a huge difference. I was at Patterson
high. Dennis Brutus was from there. Yes. James Carville was
from there. And the first anti apartheid person who died
detention Bota was also from there. And the teacher said, since
we've put in this astroturf. The kids don't sit outside smoking
anymore. They all come into play in medball or hockey or soccer,
and they're driving negative energy into positive energy, which
is important for the fulfillment of the of the teaching the last
part in every school, we gotta have water. You can't have a
school running that the kids can't go to that ablution block, so
proper toilets and water for drinking and for cleaning is
critical, and corpus can play a big role in funding this.
Government itself can't do it on its own. Doctor Suleiman, always a
joy speaking to you, and I want to thank you and your organization
again, your entire team, for what you do for our country and for
human beings all over the world with the stress we need you. Thank
you for being with us this morning. Thank you very much. You.