Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers commemorates 27 years of humanitarian aid.

Peter, thank you so much. A disaster relief organization, a

gift of the givers, is celebrating a 27 years of humanitarian aid

since it's it was founded in August the sixth of 1992 the

humanitarian organization has grown to supply aid to millions of

people worldwide. The disaster intervention, including the

establishment of search and rescue, aquatic and medical teams,

and of course, 20 other categories of projects have permitted this

NGO to deliver 2.8 billion rand in aid to 43 countries South Africa.

Included the scale of gift of the givers. Projects have grown but to

take us through the journey it's been we have with us. Dr, Imtiaz

Suleiman is the founder of the gift of the givers, and he joins

us now live from our studios in Durban. Doc, good afternoon to

you. Thank you so much for coming through. It's certainly been quite

a significant journey of touching people's lives. How did this NGO

come about?

Good evening, Palace. I end to Peter, good afternoon. Rather,

it's been a beautiful story. I was in Istanbul. We visited Istanbul,

and in the process, we met a Sufi teacher, a spiritual master. The

first visit was in August 91 I went back in August 92 as we

mentioned the sixth. It was the sixth of August. It was a Thursday

night. After a prayer session, the spiritual master just looked me in

the eye and said, in FLUENT Turkish, my son, I'm not asking

you, I'm instructing you to form an organization. The name will be

gift of the givers. You will serve all people of all races, of all

religions, of all colors, of all classes, of 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, and remember that whatever you do is done through

you and not by you. And that's how it started, and that's that's what

gift of the givers has done over the years. And you've been the

phase, really. And the force behind this NGO has humanitarian

aid always been something, perhaps, close to your heart,

besides this instruction from the old men,

well, I know it. I won't say humanitarian aid. What in the

religion itself? You know, Islamic law. It encourages you. It

encourages you to help people, your neighbor, friends, community,

family, it encourages you to do that. And your great grandparents,

your parents, your family, are a loving example to that. So you do

your own kind of service as an individual in a small way. My

parents in a shop, my father and his grand and his father, my

grandfather. When people came and bought from them and couldn't

afford, they would waive the account and say, It's fine, you

don't have to pay. And then people will come back and say, but we

don't have money for funeral. And they would give them money for

funeral, and they were they know they won't get paid. So that was a

small type of charity that you learned and it is imbibed in all

of us, and we imbibe it in our children, and they do to the

grandchildren. So an individual capacity, yes, we learn about

giving, but the scale to which this is gone is totally different,

yeah, indeed, of course. And we call it the spirit of Ubuntu here

in South Africa. Doc, I said on my introduction that this NGO has

been able to deliver 2.8 billion rand in 80 to 43 countries. South

Africa included, of course, and mainly you depend on donors.

Yes, it's all donors. The best part is we don't look for money

now. We don't have to go out cap in hand. We don't have to go door

to door. We don't have to make calls to corporates or anyone.

People just come to us the moment a disaster happens, even before we

say we're going to intervene, we start getting calls. What do you

need? Can you take something from us? Can we deliver this to you? It

happens over and over again. Schools want to collect pensions.

Want to collect all age. Homes want to collect from the

corporates. People will call ordinary people will call

professionals call. Everybody wants to give some kind of hand,

to some extent, for a disaster, which is, of course, carried much

more in the news, things that are not carried in the news, like

winter warm, food parcels, feeding scheme, counseling services. Of

course, we get ongoing donations, which we can then use for those

projects. As you mentioned in the introduction, we have the

disasters, plus 20 other categories of work that we do. Ja,

and of course, I think this speaks to the generosity of South

Africans, the Africans and the people worldwide to talk now the

challenges really, surely. It wasn't an easy sailing. You came

across some challenges. Let's just talk about the challenges that you

come across when trying to help and assist where possible. Well,

one of the biggest challenges is that wherever you go, especially

if it's a war zone, there's doubt.

There's suspicion people don't know you. There's matters of

trust. You know, even, even it's not a war zone, it was a disaster.

Don't How reliable are you? The government, the people on the

ground? Let's start about the war zone. If you go and help the

different Ward infections, want to know which side you belong to, if

you seem to be taking the side of one side, you're the enemy to the

other side, and you seem to be happy the other side, you the

enemy to the first side. So you could be an enemy to everyone.

That's the danger for you in a war zone. And you have to make there's

a way to negotiate that, to show that you are impartial. When you

go in a non war zone, in an earthquake for a for example, when

you go there people, the bureaucracy, doesn't know how

reliable you are, and it's fair to them. People come to take chances.

We've seen people take chances with the lives of people affected

in disaster zones. So obviously, there's a lot of red tape

bureaucracy. Can you be trusted who you are, and all those kind of

things is that is a challenge. But fortunately for us as South

Africans, because we have diplomatic support from

government, and because they see the credibility of our teams at

work. We give them 24 to 48 hours. We tell them, put our teams to the

test. Watch them, stand with them and be with them. And the moment

they do that for the 1448 hours, in many cases, they tell us, go

anywhere in the country, take any hospital, bring any team you want,

do what you want. The other challenge is there's always more

need that you can afford or offer in the amount of time that you

come I can in an earthquake, there's no way you can cover the

entire terrain. So you have to be realistic, program your mind and

say, I'm only going to help the people in yazmartz Avenue. I can't

do anything in Empire road. It's not possible. So you choose one

destination, stay on a destination, and do the best you

can and hope that other teams from other parts of the world will come

and do what they can do in another area. So what are your plans going

forward? As it is now, a gift of the givers is the largest disaster

relief organization of African origin. This, of course, on the

continent. So what are your plans going forward? How are you looking

to grow bigger? How are you looking to expand on the aid that

you provide?

Well, police are this is strange. We never had a plan in 27 years,

and we don't have a plan for the next 27 years either. Because,

since this is a spiritual organization. When the spiritual

teacher gave the instruction, asked him, after he gave me the

instruction, I said, Now What? What do I do? What is this all

about? I'm a doctor in private practice. Is this something that I

do all the time? Do I do it in between I practice? What do I do?

He said, My son, in everything you will know, believe me, in 27

years, I do know how I know that. I don't know, but I know what to

do, how to do, when to do all those kind of things, and for 27

years, I've just waited for the things to come in front of me,

took all of them and ran with them. I don't know what's going to

come tomorrow or in the next 10 years, but I know I'll be shown

what to do and how to do it. I'll just continue the same formula

that I've used for the last 27 years. Wow. Quite an incredible

story there. Doctor suluman, thank you so much for sharing that story

with us. And most importantly, we wish you everything of the best

going forward as you continue to extend your helping hand to the

Africans in general, and the people around the world. Many

thanks for your time.

Thank you very much.