Imtiaz Sooliman – ENCA Morning News Today Sooliman Interview Gift Of The Givers

Music.

Welcome back. I'm Gareth Edward. It's great to have you with us.

This Friday morning, the gift of the givers has expressed its

gratitude after a postage stamp was released to recognize the

foundation's contribution to national international relief

efforts. The SA post office taking recommendations from members of

the public. Well, let's speak to the man who's on the man who's on

the receiving end of this, a very busy man, I can assure you as

well. It's a MTS Suleiman, Director of gift of the givers.

MTS morning to you. We often have a chance to talk about it, but

it's about the relief efforts you're involved with. Finally,

something for you guys to to look at. Yes, you know, it's been a

great announcement. It also shows that we have youth South African

support, because this was by public submission approved by

cabinet and Parliament. It just re endorses the fate of the

government and the media and the country in our efforts, which

means, of course, we get more support to help more people in

distress in this country, in the continent and all over the world.

It's a postage stamp, and people will wonder, well, why that of all

the recognitions in the world? But as you say, it's very tangible for

people to be able to be able to see it and be able to understand

what it is that you do, and for people who might not be as

familiar with the background of gift of the givers, how long has

it taken you to reach the sort of status that you have now? 20

years. You know, on Sixth August, 1992 was our inception. Sixth

August this year is 21 years. So it's and the last five or six

years have been very significant. I know it took time. In the

beginning, it was assumed that to be a Muslim only organization.

Over the last five or six years, people have seen that we are pure

humanitarian, that we work with all groups, that all groups are

part of our team. Everybody works with us. And you know, we have no

political agenda. We are pure humanitarian, and our aim is to

help people and save lives international recognition as well,

often comes from governments from outside of the country. You've

been involved with a few of the projects outside of our borders,

and I think it's important to recognize that, if you had to look

back, particularly maybe over the last five, six years, as you

mentioned, how important those were, what has been the hardest

for gift of the givers to try and manage?

All of them had different type of challenges. I must say, each one

is different, you know, but the end result is the same that you

need to get in. And I think in most cases, the biggest problem

is, how do you help so many people in such a short space of time, but

so few resources? You go to an earthquake, there's 250,000 people

dead. You need to go to the buildings to try to find as many

people alive in the rubble as possible. Of course, you're not

the only team. The only team there. There's teams from all over

the world. We all face to the same problems. And then you have

millions of people who are hungry, who are cold, who have no shelter,

who need medical care. How do you get the most difficult decision

is, how do you decide which area you serve and which area do you

live out and you play god unfortunately, and say, Okay, I

will work in Houghton and I won't work in centenn, that kind of

issue. But the other the flip side is, if you save one life, you save

one life. So we're going realistically, knowing we can't

save everybody, but we know we can save somebody. So we use that

attitude in every disaster. Almost 21 years ago, I imagine it started

as an idea, conceptualization, and a very small group. Give me an

idea of the network that you're now involved with is it's not just

you and a few of your members from gift of the givers that you have

an expansive network that goes around the continent. No, it goes

around the world. You know, the good thing about such a good

thing, the good thing of disaster, is when you go to another area,

you always meet people from other countries and through media,

through visiting, through writes up, people contact you, and the

more people know about you, the more they write to you. And

inevitably, whenever a disaster happens, somebody from that

country knows you, or somebody from that country lives in this

country, South Africa. So multinational now and in the last

show, clearly the last few missions, people from those

countries were living here, and they came with us. They speak the

language, they know the area. So it means much easier. But of

course, we have a massive network. We have 60 permanent staff. We

have our own search and rescue teams. We have our own medical

teams. We have our own specialized equipment. We have relationships

with governments. We have relationships with people all over

the world. So it just growing and growing very briefly, just as we

begin to wrap up, when is this little postage step going to come

under? I asked you, or if you had one, you don't have one yet, not

even you. The director has one. When is it coming out? When can

people get it? It's well, 11 o'clock this morning. They'll be

unveiled, and soon the after, it will be available through through

the post office. Well done. I think you deserve it. Certainly.

Well, gift of the givers, Director, MT Suleiman, joining us.

It's certainly a bit of recognition for what the group

does the post office, releasing a stamp later this morning,

recognizing the work by gift of the givers.

You