Imtiaz Sooliman – Episode #39
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Hi there. My name is real Malan, and you are listening to shapers,
Makers, Builders and breakers.
We are well into Season Two of shapers, Makers, Builders and
breakers, a podcast show that started as a passion project
during my sabbatical in 2019
the guest that I interviewed so far underlines the depth of
leadership and vision that Africa has, and I am thrilled to showcase
Africa's finest minds on this podcast, my recipe remains the
same telling the thought leadership stories that needs to
be told by someone that is not a journalist. I approach this
podcast as a simple peer to peer conversation with amazing people
asking the questions that I would like to know. The reaction that I
continue to get from the public through these conversations
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interesting people that you believe should be featured on the
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My guest today is someone that most Africans have heard or read
about.
After many a diary conflict, we finally get to sit down this
morning here in Cape Town on a crisp morning here in the in the
center of Cape Town,
he's become well known for his humanitarian work in Africa and
increasingly internationally. He's a physician. He's a humanitarian,
and indeed, in so many ways, he's a carrier of hope, and he embodies
that which gives us hope as a as a human race.
He's founded the humanitarian organization gift of the givers.
And gift of the givers is a South African based, non governmental
disaster relief group that was established in 1992 to offer
disaster relief and responses, together with other humanitarian
work, with the aim to reach people worldwide. And after almost 30
years, it's developed a reputation for speedy responses to floods and
wars and famines, fires to namis, kidnappings, earthquakes,
the list of disasters. This goes on and on, and they're well known
for the interventions in South Africa and international disasters
and teams and volunteers that are positioned to handle any potential
disaster that happens. Interesting that, that I've read is they
possess Africa's only life locator is device that's used to detect
people live, people under rubble.
He's declined a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, which says a
lot about the man. He's received nine honorary doctorates, in
addition to the one that he that that he received from the school
that he went to, and his achievements and milestones just
goes on and on and on. The
gift of the givers organizations motto is best among people of
those who benefit mankind, and it's my great privilege this
morning to have a conversation with Dr Imtiaz. Suleiman. Imtiaz,
thank you very much for doing this. I know your schedule is much
worse than mine, and that that says a lot. So maybe I always
start these conversations with just a general sort of rundown of
your life that shaped you, where you started and how you came to
be. Dr, MTR, Suleiman, at this crossroads that you are, and when
you get to, you know, to your to your
enlightenment moment with, we're going to pause a little bit there,
but maybe just give us a little background of, you know, where did
you grow up? How did what was your, what was your early days? In
your early morning, real. I was born in potterstrom. Grew up, you
know, community.
Type of environment where grandfather, father, brothers and
sisters all lived in one type of complex community, living.
Everybody grew up together. Shops in the front, house in the back.
Everybody eats together. Everybody does things together as a family.
But it stretches beyond that. As a small community in potters room,
everybody takes care of everyone. As a wedding, you're not invited,
but you come and help for the funeral, everybody comes. Nobody
feels offended for not being invited, because you can't invite
everybody sports. Everybody takes part together those who are not
associated with sports union and even those associated with the
sports union. So when guests come from outside, they don't go to a
restaurant, they go to the different homes. So that that
love, that community building, is something you learn. Then, of
course, there was a doctor Ismail effigy, who eventually became
professor effigy. He passed on about two years ago, and he was
the GP. He actually delivered me. He was my doctor as a as a child,
when I was a child, and when I saw him, and the way he, you know, he
conducted himself so professionally and so spiritually.
Every year in the month of Ramadan, we have to do additional
prayers in a mosque, and somebody has to recite all the 30 chapters
of the Holy Quran. Being a doctor, he had also committed the Quran
the memory. So every Ramadan, he used to lead the community as a
doctor. And I said this example I like to follow. So at a very young
age, I knew I wanted to be a doctor, not the spiritual part,
just the medical part. And of course, eventually I did become a
doctor. In 1974 I moved to Durban. But before that stage, my father
and them, you know, and the family had a shop, a general dealer. You
sell groceries and you sell clothes. And again, I learned a
lot of values from there. The customers would come buy things on
account can't pay you know, something happens, and they will
come back for more groceries. And my father would say, give it to
them. They won't pay us back, but their family has supported us for
years. It's fine. And the same people will come back and said,
Now somebody passed on, we need money for funeral, but we haven't
paid you for the groceries. I didn't pay for the groceries
again. And you know, we don't know when we're going to pay you for
the funeral. So my father would say, give them the money. We're
not going to get get it back. And you learn those kind of values.
You know that you learn that when you get from people are supporting
you, you give back, and you don't expect to get anything in return.
My mother and father divorced. She went back to Durban, where she
came from, and she said people need dignity. So she said she's
going to set up an employment Bureau and find people jobs. And
she was very successful, and she says the greatest thing is for
people to be independent. And then she used to say, look, we don't
have much money, but we should make food parcels and go and find
people who need it. So whether we do one, we do four, we do five,
but we must be consistent. So we did that with my mother. And then,
of course, I moved to Durban, and in 74 I did high school there,
matric in German, and I got into medical school. What I wanted to
do was that Johannesburg, who were determined it was called
University of Natal medical school. Now it's a Nelson Mandela
School of Medicine. Okay, so I got in there, and in the medical
school itself, I started to get involved in youth activity. Youth
activity is not this was 74 this was now 8079 79 up till 84 okay,
because in 85 is internship. It was impossible to do anything. You
had no life. So, so I got involved, but mostly what schools
teaching them values, school subjects, you know, importance,
all different aspects of living, bringing religion into it, and
teaching they're like, you know, like guidance, sports, you know,
you learn, you to get together, having camps. We did a lot of
that. And then involved. In 1982 I got involved with the Islamic
Medical Association, and it just formed at that stage. And then, of
course, after that, we got too busy with internship. And then my
mother passed on. In 1984
I moved to Peter mattersburg from Durban. I couldn't get a post to
study medicine further. I wanted to do internal medicine to become
a physician. No opportunity move to battles, but set up a private
practice, which I didn't really want to do, but life has to carry
on. And then in 1990 I got involved. And then I left Islamic
Medical Association because I was starting to set up my practice. I
got married. Kids came, and then in 1990 I got involved with them
when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, projects in Mozambique
collapsed, which Kuwait was funding, and Mozambique people
asked us, well, so I went across and saw what the needs were, and
that's how humanitarian disaster response comments not as gift of
to give us Yes, and we put up boreholes, we put up medical
supplies, we supported The hospital. We gave them food. The
following year, 91 was the Gulf War. Must set up a nationwide
campaign to raise funds to help the victims. And at the same year,
I connected Turco, at that time was called foreign affairs, DFA,
Department of Foreign Affairs, and Mandela was released. The clerk
was trying to shake hands of people all over the world, and
they said, look.
They know there's a cyclone in Bangladesh. They know you want to
get involved, they'll give us a ship. So they gave us a ship. And
through that ship, we went to Bangladesh, and in the process, I
had to go to Turkey, because we took trucks for for the Turkish
Lake restaurant to delivery to Kurdistan. And prior to that date,
I met an Afrikaner guy who had coming from America to marysburg
the year I went there, in 1986
and he said, and he wanted the doctor, so I became the doctor,
and he moved from Pretoria to marysburg to teach French at the
university. And in the course of my talking to him and treating
him, he one day said that he was in America. He was feeling very
down. He was walking in the streets of New York. I saw a man
in the distance. He doesn't know why he just followed that man,
because he was so down. And then men landed up in Saint John the
Divine, a big church in New York. But when he got there last the man
he followed was a Muslim, a Turkish Sufi master, and the man
did a zikr ceremony, a Muslim recitation of God's names in the
church, and the rabbis, the priests all over there joined the
ceremony. It was said, it was incredible. And I said, I can't
believe this. In any case, he said, this was a, this was a multi
religious is a multi religious thing. And, you know, and people
talk about religion being the cause of conflict, and realize
religion is not the cause of conflict. It's people who move
away from religion it caused the conflict who don't follow the
rules, and the church elders were intelligent enough and irrational
enough, or even big hearted enough to understand the unity of
religion, and there's no fear to devour Muslim guy is going to come
and everybody's going to become Muslim. They understood that the
God, God is one, and we all from the same family. And it's an
incredible lesson. And any case, he tells me, but the real stuff is
in Turkey. So I said, what Turkey got to do with this? He said, The
person was there, this Muslim shift Sophie masters from Turkey.
He just visits America, but he passed on in 1985 that man he was
talking about. So I said, then what happens next? So he said, a
new one takes over. So he tells me, You need to go to Turkey. And
I'm thinking, Am I ever going to get to Turkey? 1986 I still
haven't seen Cape Town. When I'm going to see Turkey? And he said,
what God was happens? There's a time and a place. And 91 August,
where the delivery of trucks to Turkey. I met a spiritual master.
Fell in love with him. What he saw in New York I saw in Turkey,
Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Americans, Russians, Europeans,
people from North America, South America, Africa, Asia, all in the
Muslim holy place, absolute respect, no friction, no discord,
understanding each other, love for each other. The overwhelming
factor there was love and respect. I fell in love with the teacher I
went because that is the core of all religions is that God is love,
yes, yet we distort that. That's the way. When man moves away from
religion, that's when you have the conflict. It's not man who follows
religion that causes the conflict. There's more the dogma around
religion than the religion itself, exactly, exactly. And I saw that
that impressed. And remember to suppose Gulf War and Gulf War had
less left as big the saber Huntington at that point, spoke of
the clash of civilizations, and coming from an apartheid past
didn't help when, when you get there, the teacher tells you that
mankind is one single nation. The God of mankind is one. We just
call him by different names. You shouldn't judge anybody. Don't
judge a religion, a group, a nation, a community, on the basis
of what few people do you know, and that judging is for God
itself. You deal with a person not on the base of color or race
origin. You deal with the person as a person in his own capacity.
And he further went on to say that if people got bad habits, don't
talk about the bad habits. Talk about the good things that the
person does, and in time, as a law of spirituality, the good will
override the bad. Second thing he said is people may have bad
habits. It doesn't make them bad people. So quite often, they may
just have some and nobody's perfect, you know, habits that are
not good. And again, you need to encourage the good what's in that
person, and you will see that people will change. And he left
that philosophy so he said, When you go out, no,
the blinkered vision, open mindedness and embrace everyone.
Don't worry about where they came from, which religion, what
happened in the past, what the community did, just deal with the
person as a person. And that opened my mind completely, and I
went back and you had this conversation, and you had this as
one on one conversation with them, or were you no one on the student
with them? I mean, what was the No, he is a spiritual teacher, and
there's people from everybody engaging him, okay, but he took a
like it to me. He took me to his house and my family to his house.
So we had private conversations, because sometimes it was public,
because in a spiritual order, when they tell you something, actually,
they mean it to somebody else. So people learn they disarmed,
because you think it's for you, and suddenly sitting out at you,
you put a mental block. But when you say, you talk to somebody
else, and the guy will say, You know what? That applies to me
also, but you don't feel like.
Embarrassed because they're not talking to you. So it's a
spiritual way of teaching in the Sufi, spiritual law, that's how
they teach. And they they mean it for somebody else, but they tell
you, and it is a great way of learning. And I've experienced
that because I started teaching programs for my medical teams, my
search industry teams, and I finish off, they would all come
and say, You know what you spoke that it helped me on my prom. This
one said he gave me a solution for something else that applied to me.
I would be surprised how many diverse things people come about
and you're not even thinking about them. So that's the grace, great
greatness, the spiritual of spirituality. And that gift sort
of came to me from him, because when I went back on the sixth of
August, 1992 I was yearning for to see him again. It was a Thursday
night, 10pm
after a Zika ceremony. Again. Azika is a recitation of God's
names in Arabic. So that was over. He puts his picks his head up,
makes eye contact with me in the other side of the room, and he
looks heavenwards at the same time, and then in flow in Turkish.
And I don't speak a word of Turkish, but I understood every
single word that he said in Turkish. He said, My son, I'm not
asking you, I'm instructing you to form an organization. The name in
Arabic will be walkful wakifeen. When we translate it, gift of the
givers. You will serve all people of all races, all religions, all
colors, all classes, all cultures, of any geographical location and
of any political affiliation, but you will serve them
unconditionally. You will expect nothing in return, not even a
thank you. This is an instruction for you for the rest of your life,
serve people, but love, kindness, compassion and mercy, and remember
the dignity of man is foremost. Clothe the naked, feed the hungry,
provide water to the thirsty, and in everything that you do, be the
best at what you do, not because we go but because we're dealing
with human life, human emotion, human dignity, my son, remember
that whatever you do is done through you and not by you,
there's no place for ego.
So that was a real that was a direct prophecy that was delivered
to you by his master. I didn't understand at that point. And then
after that, at some point, I asked him, How is it that when you speak
Turkish, I understand, and other people speak Turkish, I don't
understand. And he said, My son, when the hearts connect and the
souls connect, the words become understandable. I asked him, What
exactly am I supposed to do, and when am I supposed to do? What you
want me to do? Because I'm a doctor in private practice. I have
three surgeries in a place called Peter barrisberg in South Africa.
He told me one line you will know for 30 years, I don't know what to
do, how to do, what to touch, what not to touch. In fact, the moment
I walked out to that place, the same night, it came to me respond
to the civil war in Bosnia. The same month, I took in 32
containers of aid into Bosnia. In November, I took another eight
containers of winter stuff in Bosnia in 93 we designed the
world's first containerized mobile hospital, a product of South
African engineering, South African technology, built in Africa, in
South Africa, taken from Africa into Europe. And when CNN film
hospital, they said, the South African containerized mobile
hospital is equal to any of the best hospitals in Europe. And then
I then understood,
August, 92 November, 9219
three, three in a row, all disaster related projects. He
said, You will know. I then understood that gift of the
givers, in essence, was going to be a disaster response agency
nationally and internationally, and everything that follows
around, that will still be based around disasters. We have 21
different categories of projects which we design our 30 years free.
So just in terms of, because, I mean, often in this podcast, we
have young people listening to it. And so if I have to, if I listen
to you, you had the,
you always had the fertile ground in you, in terms of this, you had
the need to serve people. You went to study medicine and and then you
had the spiritual on that same point, when the spiritual teacher
met me for the first time, he told me, in your soul, I see someone
who likes to help people. Yeah, and around the millennials, but I
one thing that I see in them is a willingness to live and let live
and to help. So if I, if I have to take it back to your example, and
so you were, you were yearning for a direction. You were faithful and
following the the.
Yearning that you felt in your soul, and at one point there was
this intervention. And what age was that? 3030? So you were 30. So
if you've prepared yourself for this moment and then that that was
then delivered to you, and then you reacted on it, and like you
said, then after that, you knew what to do and where to go. Yes,
whenever the project, I just know things are put in front of me. I
know what to do. I mean, let's take a hostage situation. My guy
calls me from Yemen, and he says, there's a sort of taken couple
taken hostage about by we not sure it's al Qaeda, oh, but some
mistaken hostage. What must we do? I said, Let's negotiate. We have
no experience in hostage negotiations. And I said, I'm
about to say his best among people are those who benefit mankind. To
me, we benefiting mankind. It fits the criteria. Let's just do it.
And then it comes. You know, this is how you should do it. Meet the
guys, announce you want to see them, because they find you. You
don't find them. And eventually we made contact. And within four days
of contact, we got Yolanda Cockerell east, and no no cost, no
answer, and
that is it just, we just do step by step, what to do next. No book,
no teaching, no training. We just knew what to do. And even many
disasters we go, we just know from the beginning, when we get there,
you're going to do this, that and the other. It just comes to you
so, so, I mean, you're from that point you you obviously had to
start to build an organization that supports you and all of that.
So from the point where, you know, received it, and you sort of went
into Bosnia, I would imagine at that stage, it was basically you
and maybe one or two support, one, one person, one, one value. It
actually wasn't one person. Then it in when I started off the
office started in my kids room, 12 square meters. It was a kid's
room, but a double bunk, or put in a fax machine and a toys wall in
that room I was, I don't have a big house. And of course, my wife,
my father in law, my brother in law, and the family started
supporting us, and I took my own money. So we started off with our
own money. We started small. And then, because I had done the
Mozambique project, and because I'd done the Gulf War. Yes, the
Muslim community knew me. And look at it, know me a little more. And
the advantage of that is, as Muslims, as part of religion, we
are charity is an integral part of the religion, that if you don't
give charity, God is not interested in you. So we don't
have to ask people to take out money. They know they got to take
out money, but what they need to know is which cause they want to
support. That's the only criteria. But take it out. There's no
option. You gotta take it out. So the Bosnian project was resonating
with the people, and in time, as the projects grew and we went to
more areas, more people started funding. But turn around came. We
got the breakthrough from other communities and other religions
when the media started traveling with us, and then the public
realized this got nothing to do with religion. It's got to do with
humanity, because the teams that travel are mixed from different
races and religions, and that's your philosophy, yes, but that's
Islamic teaching. In any case, they know that you look at
mankind, the Islamic word that used the prophet to send as a
mercy to mankind, not Muslim. In fact, as you sent as a mercy to
all creation, so plant, animal, universe, everything. So that is
Islamic teaching, and that God is one. Mankind is one. And you know,
you treat everybody equally. You show respect and love to all
religions. Everything. There was one example. There was a Jewish
funeral taking taking place. And as a funeral came past, the
prophet instructed everybody to stand and to respect the funeral,
no matter what the religion was. It's a funeral. It's a person.
It's a human. You could respect it, and it's taught lots of values
and principles like that. So that same principle we applied, and the
teams together. We interested in social cohesion, in working
together, because collectively, with the best talent, we can make
a huge difference to people's lives. And that's the essence of
religion, sacrificing, serving, healing, helping, assisting. It's
not about prayer. Pray is not any in itself. It's to prepare you to
do all these other things. That's the purpose of prayer. And the
spiritual teacher told me, he said, It's time to sit in the
corner and pray. Is gone. The world needs help. We need to go
out. Forget about praying in the corner, get up and get the job
done. Doesn't mean you must neglect your prayer. God will help
those who want to help themselves. Yes. So it was an important
principle, and then the media traveled with us. And you know,
our missions just started getting bigger and bigger. We started off
with tents, blankets, medicines, sanity pads, diapers, energy,
biscuits, bottled water. And then we extended for the first time. In
2004 we had primary health care teams. And then in 2005 in the
earthquake in Pakistan, we had trauma teams and primary health
care teams and post op rehab. And then eventually we brought in
trauma counselors. And for the earthquake in Haiti, we then, for
the first time in our own search and rescue teams, and that was the
world first what we achieved there. Eight days after the
earthquake, we put somebody out of the of the rubble alive. It never
happened before that an African team pulled out somebody from the
rubble alive in an earthquake outside the African continent. We
were the first guys to do that. I.
And with this device, that
device came later, later, okay? We learned about this device whilst
we were there, okay, and then we we did that, and then, and then,
and such an rescue. Then we added on dogs in Mozambique, we added on
helicopters, and of course, in Yemen came the hostage negotiation
story. We are the most complete disaster team in the world. Nobody
does what we do. And why are you now starting to operate across
continents as well? But we always been doing that, okay, since 92
Yeah, and your first one was Bosnia. Yeah, we've had 45
countries, but you are South African based. You don't have
satellite offices around other parts that we have, or you have we
have, but we know it's very controlled, because I have offices
from which I can move to other parts of the world. But over the
years, I have South Africans who moved across. So I've got guys
based in in Netherlands. And of course, some are not South
Africans. There are people who joined us while joining so we got
guys in den Park in Australia, in in in Kenya, in Holland. And if
you need somebody to say, okay, the disaster is closest to you,
you go first. Kind of stuff. We'll follow afterwards. And that
network is growing. The other thing that has happened since
covid Because we helped 210 hospitals nationwide. In South
Africa, there's a far bigger list of people want medical people
wanting to join our teams. In fact, I think Cape Town alone, we
probably got three to four volunteers ready. We had a meeting
in the same room where you interview me now last night, and
the President of the anesthetic society came last night, and she
said, all the anesthetists are available to you whenever you want
them. When you help
Charland McKee hospital. The head of department came. They said, all
the intensives and ICU specialists are available for you whenever you
want them. When he assisted Hanukkah, you know, California
Hospital and Kuwa in medunsa, the head of department of surgery
said, Whenever you need any surgeons, they're all available
for you. That is one aspect. Then you started getting calls from
Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, please. Can we join your
guys teams when you go out and we're thinking, heartel, you're
going to put all these people in and then even better than that,
Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, parts of Europe, Canada, America,
UK, please, when you guys go, can our team join you guys so you've
really so you recaptured the hearts and the imaginations of all
people in terms of the humanitarian work, yes, and esteem
the skill of our teams. And remember, it's important to
emphasize that these people who got the skills went to preschool,
primary school, secondary school and university in this country,
it's not something from outside. And we need to understand as a
nation that we need to be proud about that, that when you go out,
be purely South African from birth right till the time intervene. And
the impact we've made is all of them have trained in South Africa.
They all work in South Africa. So they live in South Africa. So the
core of gifts and forgiveness is South Africa, 100%
South African. It's only when we go to another country, we don't
know the culture, we don't know the goings on. It's pointless
putting somebody else in that country, when you got their own
people to do that. So as a policy, I don't send any South African to
work in the country. Outside South Africa, everything's homegrown.
Because, like, I understand South Africa, they can't come and teach
me about South Africa. I can't teach them about their country, so
it's a policy of applying. But we give them the backup. We give them
support. But the core of your team is based here. The whole team is
based here. Okay,
you've now hit, I think I saw you 30 years old, or just over 30
years old. Now you've, you've dispersed, and it's always
difficult to put it. Put a value on it, 3.8 4 billion past 5
billion. Or 5 billion rand, yes,
dollars and pounds. Economy is in lands soon, hopefully you get to
that number in dollars and pounds. So I mean your approach to your
approach to leadership. So you have these volunteers, obviously
they need to be led.
You have a very spiritual inclination in terms of how you go
about this and but how do you approach leadership? How do you
approach leadership in these because these are high pressure,
high risk situations. What is your what is your philosophy around?
Because you are one man, and the only way for you to have an impact
is to is to empower your leadership team, and what is your
approach towards that? It's very simple. I can't make people do
something that I myself don't do. So the number one is to set this
by example. So in a war zone, I go first, I go alone. Okay, to see
what's going on.
Initially, I used to go alone. And beside no teams, the first teams
only came in 2004 so we had no team before that. So it was for
2004 when the first intervention came. Because before I went to war
zones, there was no teams. I went alone. But when we decided to take
teams, then one person would come, or two people would come, and the
way the team started is, I'm a doctor, so I got a couple of
friends here. But actually it wasn't.
Close friends. It was the guy, guys that I met to also involved
in some other stuff, and we became friends. And somehow, when I said,
I think I'm ticket team, the other guy said, Okay, I think I'm going
to join you. I got these two friends. I know them. Well, I
don't know them. They're going to come. So we start like a five or
six people. You go out, there's a spiritual feeling. Spiritual
impact is there? It touches the soul. When the media started
traveling with us, they tell us, when we traveled you guys, we find
God. You know what? It's just something special. You want to
come with you all the time. So they write about what they saw,
the guys who experienced what they saw, come back and tell their
friends. Now, suddenly, from seven you got 20 people going to come
with you next time. But now we don't need 20 primary health care
people. We need trauma medicine people. But we didn't have trauma
medicine the first time. So somebody else comes Pakistan
earthquake, they we need trauma medicine. Pakistani doctors loving
in South Africa said, we know the country. We only help our own
people. Are we joining you? So we brought in another element that
when we go to a country that's often, of course, a different
naturality, we try to take people of that country, and South Africa
got everybody you know, or they speak that language, or find
somebody who can join us. So I go as an example, you know. I We make
sure the hotels and everything are going well, and then eventually
identify, Okay, this guy came for the first time, absolutely good at
admin, team management. It. I start with, put them in charge of
different teams, and as they get in charge, over period of time,
they get bigger responsibility. They're allowed to do things for
themselves, and like this, this function last night, the Western
Cape health guy came, would be many years ago. And once you give
them responsibility, you allow them to come up with their own
ideas. You tell them, This is what you want. And along the line, they
said I did this, that the other and I tell him, just change this
one aspect, and even you're going to make mistakes, as long as it's
not reputational damage. I leave them because that's the best way
you're going to learn. And that's the same tool apply, not only to
my medical teams, to even my staff. I tell them, Go in the
field, you on the ground directly. You sing better than us. You know
what's going on. What do you suggest? And they will come up
with certain ideas. You allow them to be the leaders that they want
to be in in this, in touching humanity, yes, and they come up
with some fantastic stuff, to the point now that the way we've grown
in 2019
the local South African non medical teams responded to the
floods in Durban, and the medical and certain script teams responded
to cyclone Idai in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe at the same
time. We're in four crisis at the same time, and we had different
teams doing all the different things at the same time, because
it's not only during the mission, outside the mission, we have
gatherings. We have discussions. We have a chat group that's on
365, days a year during covid. We advise each other, we meet, we
discuss, we come up on your ideas. New machines. These are more
portable. Put the big machines away. Pointless kindness,
everything's now. There's a new portable design. Let's use this.
There's a new technology, new development. I don't practice
medicine, so I'm dependent on my guys who are skilled in those
fields, with all the new technology, all the new skills,
all the new techniques. And when we go across, we teach each other
and we teach the people we went up. So transfer of skills is
critical in we started outreach programs in South Africa for the
first time, where we went to those of here in February last year to
do a Medical Outreach camp, teeth, eyes, ears, nose, body, everything
we did a similar one in September, in November, we got called by
Kimberly hospital. The head surgeon is one of my team members.
It is says, I need to catch up surgery. Covid has put me behind.
I don't have enough scripts of sisters. I don't have enough any
status. Can you help? I put it on the chat. Within five minutes, I
got like a whole army of people wanting to go. So he said he only
needs five scrub sisters and five initiatives. 48 hours later today,
in 60 hours, we wipe out 71 operations.
And last night's team was now not only gift of the givers. We got
partnership projects in river Victoria
Hospital held Aberg, tigerberg and Vincent polocki, dialysis
programs, the poison center, we funding after hours, Red Cross
Hospital and all the different teams then came and spoke, and
suddenly everybody realize the amount of medical work taking
place. And whoever came here last night had a great spiritual
feeling, a feeling of hope, a feeling of wanting to serve. But
all the skills the public sector is in trouble, and they were are
dedicated to the to the patients. So you empower them, you support
them, you encourage them. During the covid itself, we used to go
and visit them and, you know, give them a hamper, a pack something to
pamper them. They can afford it. They earn big money in hospital.
But coming from outside to say somebody recognizes what you guys
do just was a real boost of morale for so many people. And we've
maintained a relationship from march 2000 into.
90 and I go, no crisis. I just go and visit hospitals. I mean, if
you look at the South African medical public medical system, I
mean, that is a crisis in itself at the moment, because we we are
not delivering the basic health care that we should be delivering.
We are not managing our health care system, and in many cases
this, the funding is is lacking. So listening to you, it's almost
sounds like this is an ongoing crisis that you Yes, it's a long
it's a long term process, and it has something we're focusing
because covid taught the whole country that you can have all the
money in the world, but there's no ICU bed and no oxygen, you're
going to dial your 2 billion outside the door of the hospital,
and people realize how important health is, and we capitalized on
that and said, Let's and then we brought the corporates in. I said,
You guys understood now your own family couldn't make it to
hospital. Healthcare needs support, and they've been very,
very generous. Corporates have bought into the idea hospitals
need infrastructure upgrade, which you're doing. Hospital needs
boreholes because of the water and a lot change. Chaining and all
other issues and the drought supporting that. Some hospitals
need additional staff, which we paying for, paramedics and nurses.
Then, of course, during covid It was PPEs, CPAP machines, high flow
nasal oxygen machines, video Anglo scopes, triage tents on the
outside, equipment, supplies, scrubs, surgical overalls, all
that was paid for, testing teams, testing kits. We put up 10 mobile
testing teams, you know, that went throughout the country. They
didn't tested all those soccer teams and the cricket teams and
the like, big teams, you know, for mass, any mass companies, 567,
other people at a time before covid. So they got involved in
that. And now we're saying, like, Okay, guys, come from tigerburg.
We got a dialysis program. We can't fit everybody in Vincent
pelote Then comes in and said, We'll give you less than half the
rate that we normally charge. We said, Okay, we'll fund it. Did. We
funded 16 dialysis patients last year. They could do only two or
three. We did 16 in the first year alone already. And then Red Cross
Hospital calls and said, the poison center shutting down after
hours. We get 1000s of calls. So the person got a snake bite,
spider bite to ingested TB drugs. Kid took some father's medicine.
Nobody to advise them. I funded the whole program after hours.
130,000 men a month. Said, Okay, let's fund that. It's saving
health, saving lives, and reading many other things, catch up
surgery, which catch up surgery with cataracts. Huge cataract
demand in the country to catch up surgery. Many hospitals are
calling for that now, infrastructure, grade, boreholes,
equipment, catch up surgery. But the most important part, in terms
of the health, and then a lot of hospitals had no food for the
patients, which we supplied. But the most important to me, the
single most important intervention in health right now is to fund
registrars. Governments made it clear they don't have any money,
and they don't have money. It's true, and even if they were not,
they didn't have the corruption in the state capture 7.4 million
people. Taxes can't look after 65 million people. It's impossible,
no matter who the government was from which country, so the private
sector has to hold hands with government till we can fix the
system. And I'm making a call to corporates, as I made a call last
night, and I've been speaking to corporates and to the mines. I
said, Look, we're going to do this for the public, not for the
government. I need your support for four years, 1.2 million Rand a
year per registrar. That's the fee that they get. If the government
pays them, we need to pay them for four years, the register will
become a specialist. If you don't have specialists, the quality of
medicine is going to fall apart. And the register doesn't only
become a specialist, he trains the students below him, so there'll be
no teaching for students below so what kind of doctors are we going
to produce? So 1.2 million over four years. But I want to fund 500
registrars which will go to the academic hospitals in all the
disciplines, neurology, internal medicine, ophthalmology, ENT,
Gynecology, orthopedics, dermatology, general surgery, the
works, and we put up only academic hospitals because the register
only works in an epic academic hospital. But we'll put a
condition that once a month you will go to an outside hospital and
see those people and give them skills. The medical guys will give
skills to the patients. Will use your skills on them. And when you
qualify, you can't go into private sector for two or three years.
Okay, that's your that's giving back. You're giving back. So this
is the call that you've putting out there, and we will put it out
on the on the on the podcast as well, and on the social media. So
the call is from corporates, individuals, is we need to you
need one to fund 500 registrars, yes, for a period of four years
per registrar, and the cost of 1.2 million, 1.2 million each, each,
sometimes 900,000 some are 1 million. But let's say, oh, five
four years, there'll be inflation, so just say 1.2 million per year
over four years. So we'll put that out as I mean, what is amazing for
me about just listening to you is it's not these lofty, lofty plans
and lofted as you are involved on ground level boreholes. It's all
practical stuff.
So practical stuff is this is not you don't need you if you
basically need to volunteer your time in order to assist this
movement that's that started to deliver practical things on a day
to day basis to people who need it. You're from a company that's
investment. You guys look for returns. Okay, the business people
look for returns. One registrar can see 30 patients a day. That's
360 times 30. You work seven days a week, you're talking over 1000
patients. But it's not cause and flus. It's serious cases, liver
conditions, lung conditions, kidney conditions, heart
conditions. It's very serious medicine to look after 1000
patients for 1.2 million with that condition, that the returns is,
you know, there's no there's no limit to that. It's exponential,
yes. And what we need to understand is we could have been
one of those 1000 patients, because inevitably, from everybody
is listening here, there are family members who don't have
medical aid, who don't have medical insurance, and you can't
afford to put them on your medical aid. Those, it's too expensive, so
they go into the public service. So you actually doing your own
family, your own neighbors, your own community, a favor by
upgrading the public health sector. And if you expand on that,
your employees, the economic growth that you if you have a
business, it's healthy employees, happy employees. These are these,
this. This is the fiber of society, really, yes, at the end
of the day, and as widespread on our intervention is huge. And I
mean engaging board of healthcare funders, medical aid schemes,
private hospital groups, you know, and saying, okay, the Nhi, the way
the government is envisioning, it's not going to work, and it's I
stayed you got delusions of Kenya, it's not going to work. The
hospitals are falling apart, but they are right in that we need a
national health plan that has support totally. But the way they
look at it, I have a problem with that. If 8.9 million people are
already on private medical aid and they're not complaining and the
company's not complaining, why do you take the burden of those
people and bring them back to government when you can't look
after the ones they're already there? I would say, send it the
other way around. Send another 9 million the other way. And I spoke
to the medical aids, and they said there are packages. There are
plans. We can absorb another 9 million people into private
healthcare, especially for the hospital plan, because that's
where the biggest problem is. And we can have specialized packages.
We just need some buying from those companies that haven't put
their employees of medical aid. It's not that expensive. We can
tell I made the packages. Then I speak to the private hospitals,
and I say, if you reduce your rate, the medical it can reduce
their rate, and the contributions becomes less and more people can
buy into the system. But for that to happen, for the private
hospital to reduce their rate, the guys that sell them, the
consumables, the equipment they need to reduce their rate, and the
doctors who charge 300 to 400% of medical aid rates need to come
down to be at more reasonable level. This is medicine. This is
not commerce. It's about life and health. So if they do that, if we
all do that in the chain, then not only will have 20 million people
on private health care, but people who are not in medical aid, but
they need some procedure, they say, Okay, it's discipline. It's
30,000 my son will give me 5000 and my wife will give me 4000 and
my uncle will give me 8000 and between us, we pay for the bill.
We won't have to go to the public sector. And a lot of people will
do that, and a lot of people are doing that right now. Ready? So
you now take the burden of 50 million people of the system,
yeah. And then the other part is to upgrade the hospitals.
Government doesn't have the money. We pay for the registrars, and
then we pay for the hospital upgrades and the catch up, sorry,
which corporate South Africa has already doing? Give government
four years. Fix your nonsense. In four years, your state capture the
money is lost, catch the people. Get the money back. Let the
economy grow, let the tax base grow. After four years, you start
running the country the way it should be run. And that, I think,
is a fantastic plan. And it comes back to business, people in the
street, doctors, it's creating a virtuous cycle again. I mean, the
great thing that I am picking up in South Africa is that given, and
we're going to talk a little bit about the rest of the world, given
the problems in the rest of the world, we realize what we have
here is a phenomenal country with people that are resilient. It's a
beautiful country. It's got more than enough resources to have a
thriving population and economy. It really is about just getting
involved again. And what I'm picking up in the last six months
to a year, specifically post covid, is that there's so many
problems everywhere. Fix what we have, fix what you know on this
side, if you sat here last night,
you would see the hope that came out in this country. And to me,
the best thing about South Africans is a lot of these people
highly qualified. The one guy is the only ophthalmic
oncologist in the country. If he drops dead, there is nobody else
he wants to train. Other people is at hoskey. The other guy is one of
three in South Africa that does endoscopic, I mean endometrial,
endometriosis endoscopy. In the Country, it's only three of them.
And these are the kind of guys who can go in the private sector and
make millions and they train. And the one guy was just
endometriosis.
Endoscopy with the women. Problem is one of the guys that manages
the robot entire book hospital robotic surgery. Now these are the
skilled guys who can walk out and make millions in the private
sector. And I've got lady doctors friends who came out of the
government hospitals to study for the whole year, get a PhD,
specialize in the subject. And I said, now you're going to the
private sector. They said we didn't come here to get a degree
to go to the private sector. We got a degree to go back to other
people that need us most. And when you see that kind of spirit, when
you see that kind of commitment, there's an outsiders. You have to
support that commitment. You can't leave them in the ledge, you know?
And that's why I take on government systems, because the
CEO is causing nonsense. The Arab departments causing nonsense. I go
for them because you are making life difficult for somebody who's
serving the people that you should be serving, and the red tape and
bureaucracy has to be broken, and we specialize in that. Yeah,
I think that is a worthy cause to put, for everyone to put business,
as well as any individual, to put their effort behind. I want to
maybe just move a little bit closer to to to you on the one
hand, because, I mean, your your spirit around these things are
contagious.
I mean, you've seen your share, fair share of of trauma and of man
inflicting pain on man
to the end. I mean, I mean, I think you probably can tell
stories that we probably cannot, cannot broadcast on this podcast.
I mean, you've seen it all.
How do you
as a human being, and I know you had this at the spiritual calling
to do what you what you do. But we're all human. We if we're
exposed to this kind of kind of evil on a regular basis, because
that's what you do, is you put yourself between the evil of man
inflicting absolute evil on man, and the solution, how do you
keep that enthusiasm and how do you not get disillusioned by by
the nature of man and but what's going on in this world and the
trauma that you that you have to deal again? It's, it's a very
religious type of thing, where we are told that good always
overrides the bad, that there are more good people than bad people.
And at the same time, I said the beginning, when people do the bad,
you guide them to get to the right path. Many do, many don't, but
their behavior doesn't put me down. It actually gives me the
strength and the spirit to go and help those people who are in
difficulty, and the spirit of those people that have suffered
the way they embrace it. You know, again, it's, it's based on faith.
And they say, we know God has given us this challenge, and our
faith in God is increased. And they patient, you let's take an
example. This sounds very in the air. Let me tell you. Give a
tangible example. I go into Syria in december 2012 I don't want,
kind of doesn't like cold weather. It's freezing there. I got two
jackets on, jerseys, two pans, I got six blankets over me, and I
slipped my shoes on, and I'm still freezing. I'm not a guy that can
take cold weather. I go into the camp, there's this eight year old
child walking only with a panty, barefooted. It rains in Syria and
December, like how it rains in Cape Town in the winter. It's
winter. Rain is coming through the tent on the top because it's very
porous, and this child comes to me with a bowl of olives. So I asked
my host, like, what am I supposed to do? He said, you're supposed to
eat it. So I said, but there's no food here. How can I just charge
olives? He said, That's not your problem. You're the guest. The
tradition is the guest, the host gives you something, and you got
to eat this. I said, but it's a child's food. I just cannot eat
this. He said, You have to eat it, otherwise you're insulting the
child. So I take this Oliver. I can't swallow it because I'm
thinking, now I'm eating this child's food. So I see this
cruelness. I see the parent skill. I see the family skill. I see the
bodies everywhere. I see hospitals, ambulances, doctors,
medical facilities, bond. But I see the spirit of this child and
the nation wanting to give I go to Yemen. It's Ramadan. BBC said
there's German in the country. So I went to in check. I can't find
any kids with famine. By evening, I went through about 20 villages
already me and one of my team members.
I pray a time. It's Ramadan. You have to dig the fast. Suddenly, a
prayer time this lady is screaming like crazy in the street. So ask
my host, why is this lady screaming like
this? She said she's fighting with all the people in the street that
they can't take you to eat, to break your fast you are going to
be her guest. I said, but a lady got nothing. He said, That's how
they are. And there's no lights because there's lotion. It's not
lotion. You just don't have electricity. And then you go in
the house and in the dark, she's been great impression that she's
eating and give you whatever she has in house. I said, You know
what? In summer times, we have to be extra conscious about your
behavior. Now I got a choice of eating somebody else's food.
In or lying, I decided to lie. I said, you know, God, we'll do it
with this later on. Right now, I'm going to lie. Just tell a lady
that somebody else invited me before she invited me, so I really
cannot go to a house to eat. And he had to tell her that in that
spirit. And then it struck me, we didn't see any childhood famine,
but we didn't see any food in any of the houses that we went to.
There was no fridge, no stove, no cupboard, no mattress, no blanket.
These people had nothing. We're looking for the family and the
process, we only afterwards, when I reflected, I realized, Hey, I
missed something so big that nobody had anything in any of the
houses. And in spite of that, having nothing, they came forward
to share what they didn't have. You know, when you see that, I
mean, ask the teams, they will tell you, when we go, we don't
give, we receive,
because that the warmth of the people, the generosity, the love,
and when you do something, you just need to look at eyes,
the eyes. Talk a million words, and you can see that thankfulness,
that God sends something to help us, and that's priceless. We go to
his king at King Williamstown at night, and it's about sunset,
about sunset, and the green truck is coming. Our trucks are green as
they're walking in. My team's on the ground, a lady on crutches,
old lady picks up her hands, and she looks upwards and she said,
You didn't let me down. I break you and you send the green people.
I know you won't let me down. And it's that kind of stuff that just
encourages us to go over and over again. When you pull a lady out of
the rubble in Haiti, her first words were, I love God, almighty.
You instill hope in somebody several 1000 kilometers away. I
got some people who don't have any faith. When I say faith, I don't
mean in a negative way. They're not sure what they believe in, or
they don't believe in anything, but they know there's some
goodness in the world. And they tell me, when we travel with you.
We find God, we find peace, and we want to travel with you all the
time. And these are journalists and
the medical guys who come from expensive homes, four cars each,
10, 15 million homes. Sleep in the street, sewage, no water, no
shelter, shooting in the streets, bombs flying around. And the other
guys, they put up their hand first. Hand first, because there's
something that they feel that you can't explain. There's a calling
outside of yourself. It's a calling outside of and that that
transcends what you see. And you see that. And the other thing, of
course, that's on the one side, the other side. Of course, I'm I
teach my team's emotional distancing, guys that of social
distancing for the first time and physical distancing. I mean
teaching emotional distancing because you cannot absorb this.
You can't be attached to the situation. And I tell him when you
go in, please don't say that this child's leg is blown off or this
child got no sight and that old man can't walk. Please don't do
that. So you want to prepare them for that, but it doesn't always
work. It mean it is traumatic for those who goes into those
situations,
barring the people that's in them, but the people come going TO to
deliver the aid must also be traumatized. Yes, and I tried to
train but now in next we haven't done any outreach program since
covid and but before covid came, after the last Bishop, we said
we're going to take trauma counselors, not for the people,
but for the teams. Okay, so traumatization is an issue, but
doctors are generally Macho. No, we fine. We don't need anything.
Nothing happens to us. But for the first time, if you look at the
medical chats during covid, never before in history of this country
have doctors asked for mental health support as much as he has
during covid, the civil unrest, the floods, job losses,
unemployment, they've been asking, is there somebody who teaches
yoga? Is there somebody who teaches mindfulness? Can you
recommend a good psychologist, a good psychiatrist? What exercise
can we do? What communication can we use? Is there some herbal stuff
we can use for the mind? What do you do for depression? Is any
player? It's those kind of things, all different modalities, anything
to take the stress and anxiety away. And it's more and more and
the fact that they've owned up to that is maturity. Because they
were felt they were mature. They don't need it. And when we go
across, even though the team said they don't need it, you'll see,
after hours in a war zone or earthquake, let's start unwinding,
they'll say stupid things, they'll joke, they laugh at each other,
they'll say certain things. And you see, this is how the unwinding
they're collecting out what's inside. And we've got two or three
guys are very good at counseling, and it just so happens, and they
and of course, with that, the team spirit gets stronger. They bind
with each other even better.
So it's an interesting point. You say that for the first time, that
is starting to come through, because we're picking up in our
businesses.
I mean, I'm an author volunteer charities, that the level of
anxiety and stress has never been higher, and the level of mental
illness has never been higher. I mean, why would? Why would,
if you have to take a temperature check on, on, on, all of this in
terms of where the where the world's going, and also, then,
broader than that, 10 years ago, you would have said, you know, war
is becoming something of the past, yet we are now at a point where we
are in so many parts of the world looking at real crisis. There's
again, a nuclear threat on the tables. I mean, if you have to
take a temperature check of humanity and where we are, are we
getting better at what you know, at dealing with each other? I
mean, is, is Is this something is war and famine and disaster,
something that's been with us for millennia and will stay with us
for millennia? I mean, how would you what would you to me, when
crisis come? It's an educational process. A lot of the people who
went through the crisis with covid, the nuclear threat in
Europe, haven't had that kind of experience in a long time. Has
been happening in Africa, in the Middle East and other parts of the
world. And when people have their own kind of experience, like the
Ukraine, let's take Ukraine, for example. We supporting Ukraine,
you know, in a big way,
and we train them how to deal with their own situation. And they
learnt overnight. I was with them again two nights ago, and they
said, you know, we never expect this to happen in Europe. And now
there's no gas and there's no electricity and there's no oil,
and the state of nuclear weapons can come across, and they now
understand the difficulty of people all over that has happened
in the past in other countries, and the compassion and the
humanity is increasing. If you look at corporate South Africa,
corporate South Africa, I wasn't really interested in CSI, let's be
honest. CSI was something because the government said that she
didn't feel about that. The first question is, how many be points?
Will you get a tax certificate? Will we get some publicity in the
media? They're interested in that. But something changed when covid
came. For the first time, I saw compassion in commercialization, a
corporate certificate, not the CSI, the CEO calls and says,
Forget about all those things. Just tell me how much you need,
and how can you save the country, and how can you save the people
when the civil analysts came in. KZN, the first guys that call were
the guys who lost everything in that part. Of course, they got
other companies and other offices everywhere else. The warehouse is
gone, the shop is gone. Company is gone, but they're the ones who
called first and said, What do we need? How can we help? There was
no vengeance, no anger, no hatred. When the floods came 11 april
2022, is going to be a day I'm never going to forget. At half
past five, the water rose eight meters in 45 minutes, and people
were getting washed away, and I'm expecting people say, please send
helicopter, send a boat, send a diver, send an earthquake
equipment. The Wall fell down, fell down on my child. We don't
know where the child is. Please send that nobody called. The only
guys that call till 1am was corporate South Africa CEOs. And
they said,
Can we help? So I said, are you guys feeling well? So they said,
What do you mean? I said, when in your life did you guys stay up at
night to give away money? They said, we learned from covid. We've
learned about hardship and difficulty. We've seen it our own
families. How much do you need and what do you need? There is an
awareness developing. There's a cause, there's a isn't and as
something else happened, the people, people were agnostics,
people had no faith. When I say no faith, I don't mean in the
negative way. They didn't just they didn't know to believe or not
to believe. I don't mean in the negative sense. We're not here to
judge anybody. And then people who said, Look, we don't know. And I
was dealing with professors and scientists, I did a lot of talks
and discussions, and they would say, You know what, we need to
look at the world differently. There is something different here.
There is another force. We need to embrace that. And there's an
enlightenment, enlightenment and awareness, and a willingness to
look differently, not I'm fixing, I'm not going to think anything
different, a willingness to look differently. And that, to me, was
very, very encouraging. And all those kind of things, we always
say as a religious point, that when you have difficulty and
hardship, if you reflect correctly, it makes you better.
And I've seen in war zones, in earthquakes, how people pick
themselves up. Two things happen. One group of people become
absolute monsters because they have power, ego and greed, and the
prices should shoot from one Rand to 1000 Rand for the same thing.
And we have another group of people will in Kosovo. This man
was standing in the red queue. He said, I'm a multi millionaire.
I've lost everything in the war, but I got money outside. I'm going
outside to fetch that money, and I'm bringing it back here to give
out to all these people,
and that's the kind of spirit that no that makes you drink the beauty
of a mankind in other areas during the floods itself and several
others, multi millionaires couldn't get bread, and ordinary
people took bread and were distributing it.
To rich people and middle class people and poor people. Other rich
people say, we'll pay for it. You come to communities all rich
people loving God mega houses. One guy takes out the money and buys
the bread and look for where you can get it and shares it with
everybody. And in the informal settlement also, and they said,
don't worry about the money. It's time we can all afford it, you
know, kind of stuff. And you see that kind of spirit where people
want to give each other. So we're joining. We're joining mankind
again. We sort of separated from it, and we sort of covid taught us
that we are all very fragile, yes, and and that, that we are
dependent on each other in terms of not only physical survival, but
also spiritual survival, and on the same basis that the only way
to build this country is together, no other way and right together. I
mean including government. When we say government is corrupt, like
the teacher said, Don't paint everybody with the same brush.
There are some corrupt, some corrupt. There's a lot of good
guys in government. The problem is they don't have the skills. That's
the first thing. Secondly, a lot of the wrong advisors. And
thirdly, they got a pressure from their own parties. So we need to
change all that. And eventually, what we say, government,
political, party, corporate, this, those are all entities. What makes
up those entities is individuals. You fix the individual, you fix
the system. There's four critical elements that South Africans in
the world need, spirituality, morality, values and ethics. You
need to go back to the great three year olds and from the upwards to
go to the 104 year olds to change the system. But in government, if
we do that, we won't have to worry about money, about what's being
stolen, because you'll be all political. And to your point, get
involved in the basics and get involved in things where you have
that exponential return on investment, whether it's time or
money.
Your example, around the around the specialists. Yes, I know
you're pressed for time, and I know you need to catch a plane to
your next to your next destination. So I want to maybe a
good place to close it. My favorite quote that you mentioned
actually earlier in our conversation as well, and maybe to
close on this is, remember that whatever you do is done through
you, not by you.
And if I think, if we take that, if we take that challenge that
you've put out there, and if we expand on that in the present
context, what destroys government, society, systems, businesses,
communities and families is one word. It's called ego,
and we have to break that ego. I call ego a monster, a terrorist,
an extremist, a destructive agent that destroys everything. And a
lot of what we see in government now is because of egos of people,
and that's destroying the country and the teachers. Right from the
beginning, you have to put everything else before yourself,
and we do that actually, you'll benefit more than by trying to be
this boss and trying to accumulate everything for yourself. And on
that same point, we have a teaching what you don't use is not
yours. So if I decide today I got a lot of money, I'm gonna give
everybody in South Africa 2 billion rand. Please tell me how
many lifetimes you're gonna need to spend that money. You're gonna
go mad trying to know how to spend that money. You can buy five
houses, 100 million in each, but how many rooms can you sleep in?
Who's going to clean all that stuff? You can buy expensive cars,
but it gets broken down. Then you could put a new battery, fix the
tie. It's all a headache. Rather, take the money and share what you
can I had a guy from a big estate agency. He said, I want to give
you a lot of my estate money. So I said, What about your children?
You said, how much? What you going to spend? They want enough. I
rather die knowing that I done some good in this world. You know,
I go with the blessings. My kids don't eat. And I've heard it from
so many people. My kids don't need it. I was in Turkey. I met
somebody I know, the lady for a long time, just part of the
spiritual honor. She calls me. She said, I've made money over the
years with apartments. I want to give you my apartments. So I said,
What about your son? She said, My son's going now what you already
know about Him for He doesn't need mine. And getting that same kind
of sentiment ever where people understanding that to share is of
more value than to give everything to your kids who won't understand
the value of what you build, and quite often, it's blown overnight,
and they don't respect what's given to them. And when you build
your kids give them education, give them values, spirituality,
morality, values and ethics, they will look after themselves. Yes,
you will leave something for hours, for the car, for medical
aid, for food, for education. Yes, you must do all that, but by fine,
large, better to share, because whatever money you don't spend is
not yours.
Dr Imtiaz Suleiman, your spirit is contagious, and the work that
you're doing is phenomenal. We thank you for that.
I personally thank you for that. And South Africa, thank you for
that and setting the example that you are setting. We will post all.
Various links, everyone, anyone who wants to get involved with
your cause. But thank you, and thank you for being faithful to
that prophecy that you that you received. And we wish you all the
best and all the various important endeavors that you're busy with.
Thank you very much. And to some applicants, one message, don't
look at big things. Just be realistic.
Whoever teaching, whoever sees an atom weight of good, whoever does
an atom weight of good shall see it. So don't look for big things.
Help your neighbor, your children, your friend, kind the company down
the road. Don't look for big things. It's sometimes the
smallest things that make the biggest difference. Thank you very
much. Pleasure.
Season two is brought to you by exio capital. Exio capital is a
leading private equity fund manager that, through its 12 year
history, have focused on investing in African businesses with purpose
and impact. For more information, please have a look at their
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