Imtiaz Sooliman – Daily Maverick Person of the Year
AI: Summary ©
A representative from a company called MTS talks about their success in helping communities affected by drought and homelessness. They discuss their team's work and the difficulties of keeping staff in operations, but they acknowledge that they can manage their workload and adjust to difficult events. They also mention their team's work for disaster relief and their hope to continue helping communities.
AI: Summary ©
We're looking forward to this interview all morning, being
described as a Good Samaritan by the majority of South Africans, if
not all South Africans. I haven't had a chance to speak to all South
Africans from helping communities ravaged by drought to those left
homeless by flooding, and not just here in South Africa. It's become
a globally recognized brand that's making a difference. 2021 has been
a very challenging year for gift of the givers, headed by Dr MTR
Suleiman, but as always, Dr Suleiman, you've been there to
help even when the odds were against you. I think you've
received so many accolades I would take up all the time we have just
to mention them. Congratulations. What a year it has been but I do
have to ask the question, do you ever stop?
Good morning, Gareth, thank you very much for the introduction and
the kind words. It's not possible to stop, you know, because you see
difficulty all the time, and when you're given a certain gift, it's
a spiritual gift. And you know, you can make a difference for a
person's life, and at that time when you when you're about to stop
and you think you So, I could have made a difference at that point.
So unfortunately or fortunately, I don't know what it is. No we can't
ever stop. It's supposed to be holidays. Our teams are still
working, and it's been like that for the last three to four years.
We're supposed to shut down. So in principle, the buildings are
closed, the cars are closed, and offices are closed, but the people
are still working alright, as they're working right now. So no,
it's very difficult to stop, because we see the suffering. We
see the despair, and it's hard when you know you can make a
difference, that you hold stand back, because the thought always
crosses your mind that you could have been on the other side
because you could your child could have been hungry or thirsty or
caught up in a shack fire, or caught up in some other kind of
difficulty, and you would expect somebody then to come to you and
saying, I can't say I'm tired, I can't help you. So that drives us
all the time to be as far as humanly possible. Of course, we
can't be everywhere all the time, but as far as humanly possible,
whatever we can do, we try to do. Doctor. I don't mean to put you on
the spot with numbers or anything. But I mean, there's an incredible
team the backbone of gift of the givers. I mean, you seem to be
everywhere every time we have footage of gift of the givers.
You're in South Africa, around the provinces, around the world, but
you can't be everywhere. Just give viewers a sense of the kind of
team that backs you in this it must be hundreds of people and
logistics support staff
in South Africa, it's all it's all full time staff. We don't have any
volunteers, right? We need to understand clearly when I say we
don't have volunteers, those are just a few categories. The machine
is driven by 90 people nationwide in South Africa. The volunteers
are those that come on a particular site, for example, if
you're distributing food, and IX or Soweto or kylitra and people
from around India would come and say, Look, we don't have to carry
a food parcel or dish out the food with you. Those are the
volunteers. They don't come from head office. The other volunteers
are the medical and such a rescue teams, because we don't need them
every day, they they will tend towards their practice leave the
public hospital or private hospital, and at short notice,
they'll be ready to fly anywhere in the world where there's a war,
and that's great, a typhoon, whatever those are the volunteers
in so the 90 full time staff in South Africa are there, supported
by staff in offices around the world, where we have full time
staff in different offices. And those staff is about another 500 a
majority of the portion taken up by 320 full time staff in a
hospital in the north of Syria, which we've built. And that
hospital is now the largest hospital in North Syria, and then
with the staff in other offices around the world, it adds up about
500 people. Doctor, I time is a little bit against me, because we
had a briefing earlier from the transport minister. So please
forgive me if I leave this as my last question to you. About a
minute left on this. How is it that you're able to get right what
government simply can't get to?
We don't have red tape. We don't have bureaucracy. We are we cared
for disasters. Government is not government doesn't understand
urgency, emergency and disaster we born with that. We live with that,
you know, and we do that every day. We can act within seconds. We
have put us back there. We have things in place. We are we have
logistics in place. We are geared for every second to respond to a
disaster at short notice. And we did everything as a disaster. And
the teams again, that way. Infrastructures get that way, the
logistics again, that way. And you know, and you know, and our our
systems are seeing this, we can move at short notice, actually,
without exaggeration, within a minute. And that is why you are
the daily Maverick Person of the Year. Because you're leading this
organization, you're the face of the gift of the givers. But as you
say, there's a massive team behind you. Doctor Suleiman, always a
pleasure speaking to you. I do hope you try and take some rest
between now and what's going to be a busy year for you next year, if
you want it done right, you want it done quickly and you want it
done properly, apparently, the way to go is the gift of the givers.
My thanks to the good doctor. MTS, Suleiman Nandi.