Imtiaz Sooliman – awarded the prestigious Global Citizen Award

The gift of the givers. Foundation has raised more than 2 billion

rands in life saving aid for 42 countries around the world,

including war ravaged states such as Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia

and Bosnia, just to name a few. Recently, its founder and

humanitarian, Dr Imtiaz Suleiman, was awarded the prestigious Global

Citizen Award by the International citizenship advisory firm Henley

and partners. The award is given each year to an inspirational

individual who has made an extraordinary contribution towards

improving the global global community. Dr MTR Suleiman joins

us in studio now to tell us a little bit more about this award

and his work. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much. I

couldn't think of a more,

a better person and a better recipient of this award. How did

you find out that you were going to be getting it? Oh, I didn't

know about this award. I just offered my email Randy. I was

about to go to Turkey, and suddenly I get this email to say

you have won the global citizen award the company is handling and

partners. Can you please be in London on the 11th of November to

fetch it? Oh my gosh. I'm thinking what this is all about. Nobody's

called me. Nobody's asked me. Normally, when there's an award,

people phone you. They say we're nominating you, that kind of

stuff. So I contacted the company and said, Can you please explain a

little more? So they said, Look, we have offices in 25 countries in

the world, but we have clients in more than 100 countries in the

world. We're going for 20 years. About 10 years ago, we started the

global conference. Three years ago, we partnered UNHCR. We are

very interested in refugees. An international panel of judges was

set up. Nominations came from all over the world. There are three

rounds of voting. In all three rounds, you won in the voting, and

that's how you won the award. Can you believe

it? We could have, like, just, you could have sort of deleted it and

thought, oh, it's one of those junk emails where it's just told

me that I've won, you know, 150,000

million pounds.

Well, at least this one was true. This one was true when you got

there and they handed the award over to you. What was it that

they, that they they said to you, why was it they felt that your

organization deserved this award, or was was the beneficiary this

time? I think there were several reasons. I think, first of all,

they were stunned that this kind of work could be done from Africa.

You know, because when whoever was there were all northern country

people, you know, in the clients, but you could see these were very

passionate people. And with UNHCR, Deputy High Commissioner was also

there, because they parted the UN for certain projects. And even

their lifetime ambassador, Barbara Hendricks was also there. And they

had another ambassadors. David somedis is acting in some British

movie. He was also there. And the people, you could see were very

sensitive and soft towards especially the plight of refugees.

The inset that they showed were about refugees. And then they

spoke about our involvement with refugees, our involvement in

Syria, in Somalia and other parts of the world. And they found us

very unique, because we're not only in disaster, yeah, we do 20

other different types of projects, and coming from Africa with such

skilled people, they were just amazed. Immediately after the

function, they said, we like to partner you, and even just say an

email came people from Dubai, from the office, are not talking. How

can they support us? Yeah, what I love about your organization is

that you don't you know. You never forget where you come from, and

you're always ready and willing to help. I know that, just before you

left to go to London to receive this award, you offered your help

and your assistance for those here in Johannesburg that had lost

their homes and their lives to the floods that that that ravaged us

last week. What came with this? Did you offer assistance

Johannesburg? Yeah, yes. We were the we were the first people that,

in the morning, actually post my flight. Because of that, you

postponed your flight. I don't know about this. I was supposed to

be there on Thursday, and I landed up going on Friday. Amazing. So it

was half past four in the morning. My team's already in Alex, the

lady to childcare family who lost the child, we actually took them

into our own housing village. We have a housing village in Alex,

not far from the river, which we established three years ago. She's

now living in our housing village. The disaster management called us.

Provincial Government came there, the chair, the the premier came

there. Former shooting they were there. The President was with us

yesterday, yeah, and you know, we're feeding two and a half 1000

people daily in Alex we're involved in ikuruleni. We're

involved in jemiston, and yesterday we also got involved in

a tornado in enerdale. Amazing. You know, when people hear about

the organization the gift of the givers, and I know we've spoken

about it, your memoir, we had a wonderful interview about how it

all began, but a lot of people still don't know how gift of the

givers began, and it is the most beautiful story. If you don't

mind, just give us that story again. Nobody gets tired of that

story. It is stunning. August, 1992 you know, actually, it was a

year before I met a spiritual teacher in Istanbul. The following

year I went back. It was a Thursday night, sixth August, 1992

after a prayer session. And in this place there's people of all

religions, all colors, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Muslims,

people who say we don't believe in God. Everybody's welcome.

Everybody is treated equally and with respect, and nobody's

judgmental. And after that prayer session, the teacher just looks me

in the eye and tells.

In fluent Turkish, and I don't understand Turkish, and I

understood everything he said. He said, My son, I'm not asking you,

I'm instructing you to form an organization. The name in Arabic

will be work for waqifen, translated means gift of the

givers. You will serve all people of all races, of all religions, of

all colors, of all cultures, of all classes, of any geographical

location and of any political affiliation, but you will serve

them unconditionally. You will not expect anything in return, not

even a thank you. This is an instruction for you for the rest

of your life, serve people with love, mercy, kindness, kindness

and compassion, and remember the dignity of men is foremost. And

remember the most important point of all, whatever you do is done

through you and not by you. Unbelievable. It's a spiritual

calling. And since then, you have helped 42 different countries in

different circumstances, whether they be ravaged by war, whether it

be through floods, through natural disasters, or whatever it may be,

what are the kind of thank yous you have gotten? Because there's

no doubt, I know you shouldn't expect thank yous, but what is the

appreciation that people show for the work that gift of the givers

does? The most powerful thank you is the eyes of those who receive

something when you go on the ground and when the face and eyes

talk to you, and the words don't talk to you, when you see the look

on the person's face, a mother or a child or an old man when they

look at you and you can see the eyes are touching Heaven and the

soul is touching heaven that thank you is priceless. You know, you

don't look for it, but you know, because it's not about you.

Remember, there's teams that come with you, people who risk their

lives are going to a war zone, who leave their wives and their

children behind, who leave their luxuries, who leave their cars,

their homes, their practices. It's teams. It's not me. It's the teams

of South Africa that make these things happen. It's South African

people and the support of the country and the government and the

media and the corporates and everybody else, and those who pray

and the religious groups we're representing, all of them. And

when we go there and they give you that look when you open the door

and there's no mattress, no cupboard, no food, no breast milk,

even to give milk, and then they give it a look. So thank you. I

mean, that's priceless. That's, that's more than words can say,

um, gift of the givers. It is all about the generosity of people.

And if people would like to donate, it's, it's there on the

website, anything assistance, in terms of food, blankets, medical

assistance, whatever you can that's, that's how you work? Yes,

it's there. Oh, 807 86 triple seven. Fantastic. Or www, dot gift

of the givers.org. Fantastic. MTS, Suleiman, always a pleasure having

you here. Thank you so much for coming and sharing your love with

us. And congratulations again. Just to read what was said when Dr

Suleiman accepted this award,

the organizations of the award ceremony say for his extraordinary

courage and commitment saying the work of his foundation has had a

significant impact on the lives of the most vulnerable in the world,

I believe these are the most important reasons our award

committee has given this year's award to Dr Imtiaz Suleiman,

congratulations. All right, let's take a break. We'll see you after

the Stay tuned. Applause. Stay tuned.

You.