Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers founder on COVID19 initiatives
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AI: Transcript ©
Well, a day after the President announced that the country is
experiencing a second wave of covid 19 cases, the gift of the
givers, announced that they would intensify their operations. I'm
Corinda Jack Mahon, and I'm in the organization's warehouse in Peter
Maritzburg, where they've been packing up relief aid that's going
to be sent out across the country. And in the midst of all of this,
we're going to be speaking to the organization's founder and
director, Doctor Imtiaz suluman, about the work that he's done, as
well as the humanitarian ideals that he's learned along the way.
Doctor suluman, thank you so much for speaking to newsroom Africa.
It's a pleasure. Thank you very much, absolutely. So to go back to
the origins of gift of forgiveness, it's the sixth of
August, 1992 It's a Thursday night at 10pm and you find yourself in
front of a spiritual leader who's giving you a spiritual message in
a language you don't understand. Tell us about how this all came to
be and imagine what it happened. I went to Turkey, met a spiritual
teacher. My wife was with me, and we fell in love with what we saw
the following year, in 92 August, I was there again. It was a
Thursday night at 10pm the sixth of August. After prayer session,
the teacher looks me in the eye from the corner of the room, and
he says, in FLUENT Turkish, and I don't understand a word of
Turkish, and he says, to be my son. I'm not asking you, I'm
instructing you to form an organization. The name in Arabic
will be walkful, vain. Translated, it means 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 not expect anything in return, not
even a thank you. Serve people, but love, kindness, compassion and
mercy and remember the dignity of man is foremost. So if someone is
down in the ground, don't push them down further, hold them,
elevate them, lift them. Wipe the tear of a grieving child, care
caress the head of an orphan. Say words of good counsel to our
widow. These things are free. They don't cost anything. Clothe the
naked, feed the hungry and provide water to the thirsty, and in
everything that you do, be the best at what you do, not because
of ego, but because you are dealing with human dignity, human
emotion and human life. He went on to say in Arabic, hyrunas, May and
found us best among people are those who benefit mankind. He
said, My emphasis is on the word mankind, not Muslim, not Indian,
not black, not white, not Adam. Mankind unconditionally. Okay. We
went on to say, next, this is an instruction for you for the rest
of your life. And that was 28 years ago. And then finally, he
said, what I'm telling you now is the most important of everything
that I've just told you, that whatever is done is done through
you and not by you. This is a spiritual thing. I have no control
over it, as long as you remember. It's done through you. No place
for ego, you know, and it's not done by you. I told you, I don't
speak a word of Turkish. I understood every single word that
he said, and yet, if anybody else speaks to me in Turkish, I can't
understand what they're saying. And I asked him at some point, I
said, How is it when you speak Turkish, I understand, and when
somebody else speaks Turkish, I don't understand. He said, My son,
when the hearts connect and the souls connect, the words become
understandable.
I said, Okay, you gave me this instruction. What does it mean?
What must I do something? I got three practices. I doctor in
private practice. Do I do this in the weekends, public holidays,
long weekends, school, holidays, after hours. What do I do and when
do I do it? What kind of specific task do you have in mind? Because,
I mean, in the social sector, there's so many different type of
things. He only told me one line,
you will know
in 28 years, I do know what to do, when to do, how to do, what to
touch, what not to touch. And the prototype was set. The model was
set. The immediate, immediately I walked out of there, the idea came
get involved in the civil war in Bosnia, and they told me, what are
failure without a shadow of doubt that give.
Of the givers is predominantly going to be a disaster
intervention organization. That's the template. And he said, over
the years, the work will get bigger. And over the years, we
added 20 different categories of projects. But our primary project,
our primary focus, is disaster intervention. Yeah, absolutely.
And you began with that with the Bosnia wall in around the same
time, between 1992 and 1995
you took shipping containers full of relief aid to Bosnia, and then
the idea came about to make the world's first mobile container
hospitals. All of this through South African engineers. Tell me
first about the pride that you, that you had, perhaps, to bring
South Africa's work there, and the help that you gave them, the
Bosnian people, by creating these hospitals out of containers.
It was when I went in 92 November for the second time to Bosnia, I
saw all the hospitals destroyed and realized you couldn't do
building. In that case, there was some everything was getting
bombed. And by some strange coincidence, I'd seen a container
facility in NASDAQ in Johannesburg around the same time. And an idea
came, as I said, the teacher said, You will know, an idea came. Why
can't we build a containerized hospital? You know, a hospital in
containers. And I went to the company that actually designed
those containers that I saw in Nazareth. We had done three, a
theater, an x ray and a sterilization container. And I
spoke to them, it's effort. The you see, the traders on their own
effort, all traders, they they did this. And I told them, I said,
Johan, the owner of the company, why can't we build a whole
hospital in containers. He said, our hospital? I said, you've done
three what's difficult to make others. So we got the companies
in, we spoke to them, if the shipping container goes in the
shop and starts bumping from left to right on the ship while the
equipment get damaged, what must we do? And we called in the
equipment specialist, and we designed, we started engineering a
plan, and we build the world's first containerized mobile
hospital, a product of African engineering, a product of South
African engineering in 1993 not in 2020 in 1993
a hospital that was taken, designed, developed and taken from
South Africa and developed from Ad and deployed in Europe, taken from
Africa into Europe. And normally, we are always told that Africa is
a begging bowl. We want things. We always want handouts. We can't do
anything. We're not capable. And here we build something in Africa,
taken to Europe. Of course, it may be proud because it showed the
capacity and capability we as South Africans had, both in terms
of healthcare expertise as well as engineering expertise. Those
hospitals eventually became one of the world, the the Bosnia's
biggest hospitals in that region, later on, in 2005
Well, it was, it was the only hospital in the region from 1993
onwards for quite some time, right up to 2005
and when at that point, people then the I gave them, I told them,
I gave them the permission that when you finish, when the war is
over or there's some peace time, you don't have to use the
equipment in the container. You can take it out and put it in a
conventional hospital. And in 2005 when I was invited there as a
guest of the President, when me and her family went, we went to
the same place where the hospital was and they took us to a fixed
building. They said we did exactly what you told us to do. We took
the equipment out of the containers, and we put it in the
military barracks. The military barracks became the main hospital
in the war. It was a symbol of death, and after, though, it was a
symbol of life, when the hospital was placed in those barracks to
serve the people, and the equipment was still there, and
today, even gift of forgiveness is the largest organization of its
kind of African origin here in Africa. And you have spoken about
Africa being described as a begging bowl. You said, when it
goes to other countries. But for example, when you went to Pakistan
in 2005 the massive earthquake. You went there and your team
refurbished a hospital that was about to be shut down in 24 hours.
What was the perception of the Pakistani people, the other
international teams that were there, of this South African team
coming in and just taking over this operation? When we landed, we
landed in Rawalpindi. The military operations went Rawalpindi and the
South African Embassy, the first secretary, had arranged a meeting
with the Pakistani government to to receive us. The military then
came to us. The moment we got off the plane. The generals came to us
and they asked me, Do you mind not going to an earthquake? And I
looked at him, and I said, Yes, and my team looked at me and said,
Why did you come?
I said, you don't know what this man is saying. I asked him next,
okay, we're not going to the Earth Week. Will you give me a hospital
where we can treat the patients? He said, Yes, I have a hospital in
mind for you. So I said, which one I.
It's at the kentonman Hospital of Rawalpindi. So again, my staff are
looking into the shock and they ask, what is this all about? As I
said, Listen between the lines, the man is telling you that
everything in the mountain is destroyed. There's no capacity
there. There's no hospitals, there's no personnel. People have
died in huge numbers. Only survivors are there, but we can't
treat them there. There's no electricity, there's no water. You
need to move them. So there's no point actually going there, but as
a backup, those people that are brought down can be taken to a
hospital, but they need somebody to run that hospital. So we did
two things. We said, Okay, can we send emergency stabilizing teams
to the mountain? They said, Yes, but I don't have any helicopters.
All helicopters are on important missions. So we saw the American
Air Force. I saw an American
Airline officer, and I went to him, black man. I said, my
brother, you're American? He said, Yes. I said, You're not American,
you're African. You're originally from Africa? He said, Yes, I'm
already from Africa. I said, we've come from Africa too. We need some
help. Can you help me with some helicopters in two minutes? He
said, Take three. The American Air Force gave us three helicopters in
two minutes. They send us the pilots. We loaded our teams, and
they went to the mountains to stabilize the patients whilst they
were gone to the mountains. We went other team, went to the
cantonment hospital, and when we walked in, we got the sense of
death, the smell of gangrene. People on stretches, children on
stretches, unkempt, no disinfectant, no staff, no nursing
staff, no proper bed, no proper facilities, and the smell. We went
back to the military, and he said, What is this? Is this an organized
killing field? Will you put your mother in here? He said, What are
you talking about? So he came with us. We went back to the hospital,
and the superintendent said, General, don't you know we are
decommissioning this hospital. It's shutting down.
So I told him, You guys are crazy. There's nothing wrong with this
hospital. She said, What do you mean? What can we do? I wrote down
a shopping list. I said, you give me this in 24 hours, we will show
you what South Africans can do.
In less than 24 hours, they brought what we asked for a
hospital that was shutting down a South African team converted it in
less than 24 hours into a 400 bed emergency of our facility where we
did 75 operations a day, besides everything else that we saw in
terms of disaster and trauma. For that, the Pakistan president,
Thomas Musharraf, at that time, in 2006 gave us a Presidential Award
as the only team in Africa to do something like that in a disaster
zone. And one of the things that motivated us is when we got off
the plane, people from other countries, other NGOs from the
northern countries, was and said, Who are you? Where you from?
We said, We from Africa. You said, Oh, these Africans again, they
come to fetch free stuff. What did you come to fetch? What did you
come to take? You guys only want free things. You guys got a
begging boat. You always ask for handouts. What have you guys come
to fetch? We said we haven't came to fetch anything. We came to
bring service and save lives, and you will see what we can do. And
when they saw what happened in 24 hours with that hospital,
everybody was very silent after that.
Well, of course, that's the international outreach that gift
of forgiveness have, and there's more adventures that the
organization has had, especially here in South Africa. And so after
the break, we're going to be speaking more to the work that the
organization has done in South Africa, specifically during the
time of covid 19, we'll be back after this. Welcome back. We'll be
discussing the relief aid done by the gift of the givers
organization founded by Dr imfiya Suleiman, who speak to us first
about the work he's done internationally. But of course,
there's been an abundance of work done in South Africa,
specifically, recently, the Eastern Cape was identified as a
hot spot in the second wave of covid 19 again, and your team then
descended on Makanda at the settlers Hospital, where you took
over an isolation wing between almost 10 days, creating a 20 bed
isolation wing costing 750,000
Rand. How did you do this for this amount of money?
We're specialists in saving money. It's not our money, it's corporate
money. And at times when it's so difficult, like this, when the
economy is down, the donor funding is also down, and donors want to
see their money spent wisely. And we also whether it's donor money
or our money, as a religious instruction, we are told you have
to look after resources carefully, that you are accountable, as in
the point of religion, for resources are given to you, and
the more we use it better, the more people we can benefit. It's
about maximum benefit for.
Minimal money, of course, with our history for 28 years, people know
who we are, and people come and say, Okay, from their side,
they'll throw in something, they'll cut the labor cost, or
give the component cost, or they make a 5% markup instead of a 45%
markup, you know. And they'll do what we can. And sometimes the
laborers will say, don't pay me wages for the next three days.
This is from me, or the or the chair the project manager will
say, I don't want money for four days. This is from my side. So cut
that cost, and you would find suddenly there is a willingness
not only to help the organization, but in this specific incident, or
in this specific incident, this case, that people I need because
of covid, 19 people are dying. So let us do something from our side.
We want to do good from our side, we'll get some blessing from God
Almighty. We had a building team. We've got a relationship with the
building team. A few months prior to that, we took a wing in
Mitchell spring Hospital in Cape Town, and in 30 days, we took an
entire wing, and for 10 million Rand, we refurbished an entire
wind in Mitchell spring hospital. Of course there, it's 60 beds.
It's slightly more because there were other things also to change.
There's lot of work to be done in that hospital. Right now, that
hospital is full. For the second phase, that hospital is full, we
need to put oxygen points. We need to put more support, because the
hospital is now fully functional as a covid 19 oxygen facility. And
while that was taking place, we then went to settlers Hospital.
I'm told, in the escape because the messages were pouring in from
40 hospitals, the virus is here. The virus is here. The casualty is
full. Patients are dying. People are dying outpatient they're dying
the chairs. They're dying in the car. They're dying in the in the
queues. They're dying at home. They're coming too late. We need
to do something. So we went to settlers we took a walk around.
And whilst I was walking around, I see these two empty, beautiful
wards, like epsilon, in terms of public health service. And I said,
Why? Why this is why empty? Where's the patients? Here, you
show me outside the casualty. You show me stretches, but you're not
using this place. All locked up, all completely sealed up. So the
CEO tells me this hospice win was set up by a private hospital some
time ago, and four months ago, they left. There was some friction
between the private hospital and government. I don't know what the
problem was. They left. They took the equipment. They took things
off the wall. The plumbing got damaged, the oxygen got damaged,
the ceiling got damaged, the lights got damaged, electricity
got damaged, the floor got damaged, lots of things got
damaged. So I said, Why don't we fix this? She said, we are told
there's no budget, maybe in the next financial year. I said,
Corona is now. Doesn't help us in next financial year, does it? She
says, No, but there's nothing I can do. So I said, if I do it, is
it okay? She said, You can do it. It's okay. But what was really
amazing about that, it took two minutes. Do you know, red tape on
government? How long it takes, fully in this form, have a
meeting, have a discussion, send it to the region, send it to the
province. Do this? Do that. Two minutes. I said, You sure? She
said, Yes. From there, we call the builders, the same team. They were
there in 48 hours. They started on Saturday. The Saturday, brought
all the building material in. On Sunday, they started. They stayed
in Makanda. The following, Thursday, in five days, they
handed the keys to us. They said, We just need to do the final
touches. So we gave it the weekend. I filled it on Monday and
Tuesday, we had the official opening. In five days, it was
done,
and a 20 bed hospital, 20 bed covid 19 facility. But what was
really good about this was the fact that the CEO gave a direct
permission or no paperwork, nothing to say, just Yes, do it,
and that's what you do when it's an urgency, when it's an emergency
and a disaster by nature. Those three things mean quick action, no
long discussions, no protocol. The second great thing that happened,
Dr tam McNally, head of Tamba TV hospital, also in Makanda, said, I
will bring the beds. And he sent 15 beds. You have to put more beds
in. But he brought 15 beds. What mattresses? He said, I don't need
them back. They were just lying wasted. He sended hospital, inter
Hospital Corporation, we supplied 120 beds and set up 120 bed covid
19 facility in bishu Hospital. Now we thought, maybe we can borrow
some of the beds, but they all now be put into the hospital. The CEO
said, Look, I have some stretches brand new we're not using we said,
Okay, we can't use them as beds. But when we were walking down this
aisle, we saw there were not enough stretches in the outpatient
and the casualty. So he said, send them. So my teams went and fetched
16 stretches, which we put in the casualty for new patients coming
in. We put it in maternity and we put it in theater. But this brings
out another point, that if you network properly, it has urgency
to help. If there is cooperation and understanding and a
willingness to help, you can do a lot of things very, very quickly.
So we solved a lot of clubs in five days. It seems like in.
Very short amount of time with not using an exorbitant amount of
money the gift of the givers are able to go into situations, step
in and provide relief where relief is needed, but essentially, this
is where government should be stepping in to provide that
assistance to the people on the ground. What is your take on
having to go to areas, for example, to places like the
Eastern Cape. I know just recently, you visited the local
village where people, for years were begging for clean water, and
in a matter of days, you drilled boreholes there. But this is a
service that should be provided by the local government. What's your
take on having to come and do this government seriously? Look, needs
to look at itself. Look, there's a lot of good people in government.
It was the government actually called us to come to petty and
they were quite open. They said, Look, we drilled 32 boreholes and
we didn't get one drop of water. And the problem with that system
is people don't there's a lot of corruption. People just get
anybody and give them contracts. You have to work like a corporate
because, since it's not your money, you really don't care. In
the corporate, you make a mistake like that, you won. You're out of
the company. So government needs to look properly at expertise. Who
can do the job best. It's not about buying a drill. All of us
can go buy the drills and start drilling everywhere. The type of
context they give is, we allow you 10,000 meters of drilling. I'm
just giving an example, maybe 4000 meters, but 10,000 meters of
drilling. What that means is, you can keep drilling up till you
finish 10,000 meters. 80 year 150 day 200 day 70. Year when you add
up 10,000 meters. Okay, I do for 10,000 meters. Sorry, I didn't
find any water. There's no obligation to find water in the
contract. So you die, you get your money and you go,
who understands the rocks? Who understands what type of water
comes from? Which type of rocks? Does this water contain salt? Does
it contain iron? Does it contain manganese? Does it contain
something else? Who knows that? You need people to know the rocks
properly. Now that's our advantage, we got a geologist who
knows, who studied the rocks for 40 years. Doctor, he didn't Khun
about when he goes to an area, every area he's been to within
three to five hours is found water when people haven't found it for
months. So government needs to relook at how they give the
contracts. Who they give the contracts to, what type of
provides do they put in the contract itself, and there's to be
a better cooperation between the municipality and, this case, the
water and sanitation department. They have to have tighter
measures. And to me, the most common sense is, I think
everything should be controlled. Funding should be controlled
nationally, because in that way, you can compare prices in nine
provinces for the same type of rock, same type of situation. This
guy told me 500,000 men, and that guy told me 50,000 men. Now either
the 50,000 guys taking a shortcut, or the 500,000 guy is robbing me,
or it really is worth 500,000 men for the kind of work that he's
going to do. So you need to have better systems to control this
kind of stuff. We already drilled eight boreholes, all fully
functional. We found four balls. We found six old balls that we
blew out four. We can use two. We can't use now we're going to test
the quality of the water. We may have to do something if the
chemical is not correct, we still have to connect electricity. We
put the pumps in. But people have found water. Worst case scenario,
they can boil it and drink it. We don't have any water. You can't
boil anything. But you found the water. You found the water. So is
this the systems that you have in place for gift of forgiveness to
ensure transparency, because at the same token, you are dealing
with large amounts of funds that need to be sent out to help
people, and you need to ensure that those funds are not being
misused, of course, because if corporates are at once smelled and
everything is belong, you never Going to get them again, and it's
only right. They've given hard earned money from from their
companies with good faith to you. You intend have to take it in good
faith, but not for you. It's for you to use for somebody else who's
in trouble. And when you put it in good faith for those in trouble,
those people enjoy or are grateful for what has been done the
municipality, it is their job, or the government entity, to make
sure it runs well. In that way, we are all winners, because the
corpus will say, Okay, I want to give you more and another. And it
has happened. We start off with some corpus for 10,000 Rand. The
contributions are gone to 5 million from 10,000 Rand for the
first time, you know, in over the years. Yeah, because they've seen
what we do, and they keep coming back. So Doctor Suleiman, if you
can just quickly, also tell us, because there is not enough time
in this interview to speak about all of the interventions and
relief work you've done in South Africa, but the one over your past
28 years that's touched you the most in your own country. What
project would that be? Covid 19? Without a doubt, it has been the
the project that has brought huge mental, emotional, physical
distress, heartache, people die in isolation, destroying the economy.
People who are well, earning, who could give, have become people who
need recipient. I have to be recipients of eight companies
lost, jobs lost. You know, medical guys needing psychological.
Medical assessments, means psychiatric consults. Medical
personnel dying like never before, in in not even one year, in six or
seven months. When I say medical personnel, I mean nurses, doctors,
Allied staff, supporter, that guy carries a patient on the table,
the tea lady, all of them in a medical setting. So many have
died, and the grief it has caused in in one year, police people
dying, so many of them, so many saps. People have died because
they're in the front line controlling all these things. And
when one gets sick, hold. I mean, just three weeks ago, the time
that I went to Eastern Cape before I saw settlers, immediately after
I saw settlers. Sorry, on that was the 30th of November, on the
second of December, just about 35 kilometers outside Makanda,
there's a place called Alexandria. We were going to do a big program
for the saps
on the 30th of November, they called us, they asked, Can we
cancel the program? To Brigadier and Academy, who were the main
people in that program, are positive covid, 19 positive, and
all the others have to go for testing. Now we can't do this
program. We are risk to ourselves and we are risk to the public.
Those same two people passed on four days after that,
and like that, we've lost a lot of people that we know personally.
And in Livingston hospital, the medical lady was very happy the
day we got there with all the supplies. The next day, she was
very depressed, and she said, we asked, What happened to you? She
said the dermatologist lost his wife to covid Last night,
two days later. She said the nurse had served here for years. She
passed on. She died in a bed. She couldn't get access, she couldn't
access health care for covid 19 she gave her service as a nurse.
She died in a bed in house.
It's a year of absolute tragedy. Health point of view, medical
point of view, economy point of view, and the drought in Eastern
Cape, money for five years, and the amount of animals that have
died because of a lack of fodder, it's all combined in one it's
probably the worst year now we speak. It has been indeed. And of
course, this is perhaps the year in which the spiritual leader is
speaking about what you are meant to do, and we're going to speak
more about that as well as speak about the team behind gift of
forgiveness. In fact, there I'll share you say for the first time,
gathering together being able to begin or really look to the relief
work for the next year. So after the break, we're going to be
discussing more about the team behind gift of forgiveness and get
to know more about the man behind gift of the givers, we've been in
conversation with Dr Imtiaz Suleiman, who, 28 years ago,
founded the organization the gift of the givers. This on the advice
of a spiritual leader, Doctor Suleiman, in 1992
you were told that you need to follow this route, and you gave up
in your practice here, your medical practice in Peter
maritsburg, I want to know, at the point of you choosing to undertake
this, this path, did you have any doubt about yourself, the future
and the future of your family, for giving up, really, that support
structure that you had
when I saw the teacher for the first time, 91 my wife was with
me,
and both of us fell in love with the teacher.
And in 19 two I came back, there was something I believed in this
man, and to me, it wasn't a problem to give it up, because he
told me that you'll be looked after. He said, I'm not your
biological biological father, but I am like your biological father
and the spiritual father, unless I would worry about my own children.
You are my son. I worry about you in the same way. You will be fine.
Everybody, everything will be taken care of. And in 28 years,
everything has been taken care of. But the strange thing was this,
that in 94 It wasn't me that closed that practice. It was my
wife. She said, you're running all over the world. People are coming
here and you sit in the practice with six children. They don't want
to go to any doctor one day, somebody want to diners in your in
your surgery, because they don't want to go anywhere else, and they
don't want to see the locals that you're putting in. It's costing us
a lot of money, and we're not achieving anything. I think you
should just shut this practice down. And I thought about it. I
wasn't even in the country at that time. I was out of the country, I
was in Bosnia, and I looked at it, I said, she's making sense. And as
the organizer and the teacher said, the organization will grow
and grow and grow. And I realized you you can't do two professional
jobs at the same time. So it was a choice of the practice or a choice
of the spiritual work. But I already gave my commitment to the
spiritual teacher when he said, This is an instruction for you for
the rest of your life and accept it. So there was no option. I had
to go for that. But it's not like a gun was put to my head. I was
happy to do that. The person who found it very difficult to accept
was my father,
and he said, But you studied for seven years, you just start a
practice. You wanted to specialize. Are you sure you're
doing the right thing? You know, what's the security? What's the
future? Where is this going to take you? How can you be so sure?
I told him, Gary, I faith this thing is going to work out. And he
was always in doubt. And he said, Look, I don't have the faith that
you have. I can't stop you. He passed on in 2016
but a few years from before that, he started saying, You know what?
I'm happy. You.
Made the right decision. I wish I could have the faith that you
have, but I'm very proud of you. You've done the right choice. And
your other family, of course, is a support system and gift of
forgiveness. Your contingent of staff across the world the right
share as well.
I want to know they go out with passion and dedication into some
of the worst parts of the world where there's complete anguish.
What sort of impact has this had, if any, on their own mental
health, as well as your own mental health? How do you overcome going
into situations where people are just suffering? There's a lot of
answers to your question, okay, the first part the teams I got, I
have a core team of at least 30 or 40 people. They were not the core
team from the first day, they developed into a core team through
several missions. Now let me tell you what I do when we go into a
war zone. I actually tell them not to come. I tell them, if you can
die, you can get your face blown off. You can become disabled. You
can get captured. If it's different types of groups, you can
be kidnapped. You know, a lot of things can happen to you. I spend
more time discouraging them, and they keep saying, we're coming,
we're coming, we're coming. And one day they just got fed up with
me. They said, Don't you know that we are medical professionals and
we are adults. We took a conscious decision. So I said, Well, what
about your child at home? You know what the answer? The answer they
gave me, we are going to do God's work. God will look after us so we
come in and do you know, for the war situation, the call up list,
the people respond are bigger. The lists are more than in a normal
natural disaster situation, more people sign up to go in a disaster
situation is highly dangerous when they can die. Then the situation
that's an earthquake or a flood or a typhoon or something like that,
that's the commitment they have. And the moment they they whilst
they they want to know when they're going for the next one.
Bombs fell around the hospital. We were in Sadia. Shooting took place
in the hospital while we were working those so same people
didn't say, Oh, we never going to do this again. You came out from
there. We have twice, twice a year, once a year meetings with
the disaster teams. They want to know when is the next mission?
That's the quality of people. We have your question about, How do
we look at it? How do we take the suffering?
You heard the things, social distancing, I teach them emotional
distancing. You don't get attached to the to the to the situation or
the child or anybody there before they leave. I tell them when you
go there. You can say, I feel sorry for the people of Syria or
Congo or Niger or Sudan. You can feel sorry generally for the
people, but don't say I felt sorry for this boy and that woman and
that man. The moment you do that you are psychologically and
emotionally attached, and the moment that happens, if something
goes wrong, you are in serious trouble, you then go through what
is called secondary traumatization, that not only the
person on that side, but even you need counseling, and some of the
people are affected, and they would. And the medical guys, of
course, macho. They don't need psychological we are strong
people. Everybody says that. I mean, that's how the medical field
is. No medical person will ever admit they need psychological
assessment or support. So what we do every evening, after this work,
we have an informal get together. First, it's very, structured. It's
a feedback report of what's going on sayafter. It's like jokes, and
you take it easy, and you find a lot of people start unwinding by
laughing, saying jokes. And there are some people among us where
they look at them, they look like the counseling type. So they will
go and talk to them quietly and give them their concerns. And
there are three or four members in my team who can pick it up. They
say, You know what? I think that guy is battling. I think this lady
is battling, or this doctor got a prom. We will take them eight
o'clock or nine o'clock and talk to them quietly and internally
they start sorting out the issues. And over the years, we know who
can take the difficulty and who finds it more difficult. And when
a new team comes, these 40 people, because I don't have time to see
them, I'm involved with the logistics and the project and
setting up the things they would then groom the new people and say,
Look, be careful about this. This will happen. This won't happen.
And in future, we're looking at taking trauma counselors, not for
the victims, but for the medical teams that are going as well as
you spoke about, you touched on the danger that many of the staff
are in. Many of these search and rescue teams are in, whether it be
natural disaster zones or in areas like Syria, where you already have
hospitals set up. And I'd like to know more about the negotiations
that you'd had to have with al Qaeda, or when it came to
negotiation for free, for freedom. For Steven McGowan, of course, I
know there's security concerns around that, but what was that
process like in terms of any intimidation on your team? What
were they feeling during that obviously turbulent time? There's
two types, yes, the one, what Yolanda coffee. That is a direct
face to face with al Qaeda, my guy in Yemen.
Salamati, who now lives in South Africa, had to leave. Because of
that process, they had to leave. Still they couldn't go back home
since 2014
he lives in South Africa. He was face to them, face to face to them
in the same room. He was in their car. He was there to fetch Yolandi
and bring him back. But when he came to Pierre, things went wrong.
When the Americans went in and pier and looked Somers died, and
they said that Alnus told the Americans, and in return, al Qaeda
shot how people that were going to feat to bring him home. So the
tribal leaders also turned against him. It was not in our hands, but
a total disaster. But he was in a room face to face, but they did
allow him to communicate with me as he was talking to them, and I
would ask them for body, body language, how do they look? How do
they speak? How's the voice told? What are they saying? And at some
points I would tell him, go back. And at some point I would tell
him, don't ever go back. Stay away. Don't meet them again. And
then the negotiations start again. I say, Okay, go back to meet them.
So between the two of us, we were working how to do that. But gowns
case wasn't a direct contact. It was through intermediaries,
somebody that we spoke to inside Mali and Niger, and that person
speaks to somebody else, who speaks to somebody else, who
speaks to somebody else. We went to this speaks to al Qaeda. So
that process was more secure. It was safer, but also your to make
sure the messaging is correct, that it doesn't get lost along the
line the messages that you're sending. And what our experience
in Yemen and because it's al Qaeda again, the second time, we
understood the systems much better. So to actually follow the
system was much easier the second time around. And we did it for
Johan Gustafson and for Stephen McGowan. And right now, we have
kept, you know, people, the two talents that came out. We actually
briefing people for that before that. And now there's we asked,
we've been asked to help a Colombian and American, you know,
and suddenly said, Get involved. And there's another scientific
trap there also, which we presume I was just about to ask, Are you
now receiving calls from other countries as now the organization
that's coming out of Africa to go and assist elsewhere in these
hostile, hostile situations? Yes, governments have called us.
Governments even met us, and they want to know the procedure. How do
you do it? And we've briefed them. And governments don't come
directly, except, I won't mention the names, but 12344,
governments outside South Africa came to us directly. They send the
ambassador or the military attache or the intelligence guy to meet us
directly, or we met them in the embassies. Or they caught from
another country directly. Other guys do it through intermediaries.
The guy said, Look, I can't tell you I represent and I know it's
representing a government. It's so clear, because we've been in the
business for too long now. So eventually, in the end, they say,
Yes, I was representing that government. Thank you very much.
So they find people calling us because they know the procedure
and they know we've been very successful. We've been very
successful in bringing ransom down product from 12 million to 2
million kind of stuff. We don't get involved in the last part. So
whether people pay or don't pay, we don't know that, because
sometimes there's an arrangement between the government and the
government in the country where the people are and then that
government releases prisoners or does something else. So the final
details of what eventually happens, whether money is paid or
prisoners are released, or there's an exchange or something, we don't
know that, yeah, because al Qaeda themselves tell us, in the end, as
an NGO, you can't get involved. This requires military. It
requires government. It means taking the hostage, sending hand
it over to the government. You guys cannot get involved in that
process. So of course, gift of the givers comes in as peace movements
to ultimately negotiate for this doctor. Suleiman, we're almost at
the end of our conversation. After the break we're going to be
discussing now what's next for gift of forgiveness, because this
pandemic is continuing, and of course, the help of relief
organizations such as yours is needed now more than ever, we'll
be back. Well, we've had a lengthy discussion with gift of
forgiveness founder and director, Doctor Impa Suliman, and at the
tail end of the conversation, we're joined by a very important
guest, five year old, rahma, your daughter. Hi, hellos. It's really
nice to meet you. And just before we started recording, you told me
that you wanted to meet someone very special for a very important
reason. Can you tell me again who that person was
sorry.
Why did you want to meet
because he has money, and what do you feel that he needs to do with
his money right now?
Why you told me you wanted money from him? What is output?
I forgot. Covid 19. Covid 19. You I can see taking after your
footsteps, your daughter as well, coming through.
I also want to know what is the next step for gift of the givers,
in terms of the next year of the pandemic, covid 19 is going to
continue. What next is on the radar, possibly to get as well the
President's attention
we look first of all, the first part in our 28th year history, we
never planned anything. The teacher said you will know. So
there's no blueprint. There's no formula. Has been working for 28
years. Why should I change that? So we handle things as they
happen?
But for the covid 19, we have needed a specific strategy. And
March 11 this year, I was in Cape Town four days before the
President made the announcement of declaring it a national disaster.
We laid out a blueprint for covid 19, specifically, and we said
number one staffing. And it's a big problem right now. As you can
see that every time somebody gets infected or passes on or gets
quarantined, it's a major burden on medical healthcare workers,
especially if the counts of patient coming and starts going
through the roof, which is happening right now. The second
wave is far bigger than the first wave. The virus seems to be far
more aggressive as it were, targeting only our people. It's
going for 15 to 19 year olds, 30 to 40 year old, and even children
have died. And just few days ago, a three month old baby was
positive. So it's very aggressive. So we said staff. Secondly,
unrestricted use of PPS or supply of PPEs to healthcare workers or
frontline workers, not necessary, doctors and nurses, everybody in
those wards or in the whole hospital. Thirdly, of course, in
initial phases, phases, testing was required. It was the public
couldn't afford it. It was very expensive privately. So we made
from where it was 14. Then 14 150 ran a test. We brought the price
down to 650 using our influence with laboratories, we set up 10
testing sites in the country. We had three mobile sites. We were
involved with five laboratories, and the price dropped from 14 150
Rand to 650 and other laboratories had to bring the prices down to
around 850
so testing was important. Then, of course, the critical thing which
everybody is anxious of the PPEs. We had to make sure that we
supplied all the hospitals. We supplied 200 hospitals and clinics
with PPEs in the country, and we still bring it at the hotspot
areas, not about 200 but where the hot spots are. And then, in the
beginning, we said, we know they're going to need tents,
because they're going to say they don't want the patients to come
into the hospital, the whole hospital will get infected. So
selected hospitals called us and we put up 37 tents at a cost of 3
million Rand a month, when we knew they going to ask us for video
landing of scopes to do the incubation. And there were only 15
available in the country, and we bought them off, and we gave it to
various hospitals. And then the next phase would be, of course, if
the disease gets very, very critical, oxygen points, oxygen
machines, oxygen consumables, and all everything related to oxygen
would be the next phase. And of course, non contact thermometers
and pulse oximeters. And believe me, when we deliver those simple
things of PPEs, non contact thermometers and pulse oximeters,
which are still doing right now, then the jubilation that you get
from the medical staff is just, you can't understand eight months
later why they're still dancing when you bring that stuff and
scrubs, yeah, because a lot of them needs the two piece suit. The
way in the wards, that's been a big hit. We just gave a contract
for another 2000 in the last two days. And then, of course, the
high flow machines. We've been we've been flooded calls right
now, in the last two days, but high flow nasal oxygen machines,
they said, people need oxygen. We don't have the machines. We don't
have the constable. The companies are closed. What do we do? And
we're getting calls from KZN Eastern Cape and Western Cape for
that. And then, of course, we decided to go a little further,
and said, Look, we're not keen on field hospitals, yeah, because
field hospitals will cost a lot of money, and when you break it down,
what happens? All that money is lost. So we went to Mitchell's
plane, because the virus epicenter was there at some point in Cape
Town, and we said, Do you have some building or some Ward we can,
you know, assist. They came with a whole wing lensa. He asked what
they call it. I said, this whole wing you can have in 30 days. We
renovated it, what I mentioned in the beginning, and, you know, and
made it a 60 bed facility. Right now, we've given a contract to
afrox to put in another 18 oxygen points. But frogs also overwhelmed
with the amount of requests, so it's going to take another week
before they can install that. Then we were asked, Can you get us four
meters of oxygen? Can you get us oxygen gages? Can you get us
oxygen masks? And those requests are coming from all over once we
did the infrastructure for Mitchell, Spain and now especially
what with settlers, a lot of hospitals in Eastern Cape are
saying we need simple ablution facilities. We need shower
facilities for the doctors to wash when they come out of the covid
wards. Can you help us with some furniture? A chair, a urn, a
fridge, a microwave, basic things they require. So what we've rolled
out the pattern we followed. We're not changing that. As as requests
come, we will still follow. We're going to support lamston Hospital,
about 26 paramedics. We already gave them six nurses early in the
year, where we can in other places, if we can support, which
is plain cord. Yesterday, they said we will put local nurses in.
Can you afford to help us to pay for it? So now more hospitals are
coming. They want staff. They want PPEs. They want, scrubs, non
contact thermometers, pulse oximeters, high flow nasal oxygen
machines, infrastructure chains, fixing up ablution oxygen points,
beds and mattresses. And those are the requests, and we just
following that as best we can. So doctor, right now, what I'm seeing
is that.
People need help more than ever. They need relief organizations.
But I want to know from the spiritual guidance that you are
practicing on and that this organization is based on, what is
it that is stopping people from going ahead and helping others,
even if it's in the smallest manner, why is it that we're not
seeing as much help as we could have, for example, from just one
organization we see help with millions across the country. Well,
there's a lot of paths to your question. The one is, a lot of
people want to help, but suddenly they in a position where they need
help themselves. So a lot of people can't help anymore because
they've lost everything. And by the same token, earlier in the
year, a man came to office in Cape Town, and as many such people like
him, and he said, Look, last year, I gave you two and a half 1000
Rand. This year I haven't had a cent of business for three months.
My place is closed. I have no income whatsoever. But I want to
give you 10,000 Rand, four times the amount last year. Because
while I know it's difficult for me, there are people outside, wow,
in far bigger, difficult position than myself. So I need to give you
a little more like him. There are many people who had the same kind
of sentiment. And we found to say there was a lot of people will do
like a marathon, virtual marathon, virtual climbing of the mountain,
do some boating, do some, some exercise thing. And lot of groups
came like that. 2000 5000 7000 people don't have money, but
they're making an effort to do something. The companies have come
are now looking for where they can assist in the best way possible.
And of course, they want transparency. Our success is that
everybody knows what we do. They can see, they can see, they can
see the speed at which we move. And of course, we were not formed
like three, four months ago, between whoever history of 28
years. We have a reputation. We have abundant media coverage.
People know what we do. So people are keen now to take their money.
If they got little of it. They had much more before. But now, with
all the profits dropping, they only have little to give, and they
want to make sure that when they give it, it's used in the right
way to help alleviate the problem with covid 19, and a lot of
funding has been, I think, even taken away from other
organizations to come to us. That's the impression. Again, I
may be wrong, and where people don't want to give money is to get
disappointed. If they find they've done something and suddenly let
them down, you will find that they won't want to put money again by
those people, and they get disillusioned. And it takes very
long time to get people to support especially if they've got heart
and money and their heart is broken and the seeds wasted,
they're not going to give money out. That's right. Today, I was
having a discussion with my staff. I said, as part of our work, we
have a responsibility. We have to be accountable, and people have to
see that the money is well used, so we don't break the heart. Yeah,
and we do the things the right way, more people will come
forward. And it's not about big money. You don't need a million
Rand or 5 million Rand, 50 Rand, 10 Rand, 30 Rand. It's about
volume. 10 million people, you know, at 30 rain is 300 million.
Um, so now, for example, when people want to help you. You back
in 1992 were able to shut down your medical practice on the
advice of your wife and go ahead to Bosnia and fulfill that calling
that you had. Now, when someone who wants to do something, what is
the one piece of advice you have for them, whether it be an adult
who wants to share some of their money to help others, or a child
who wants to meet the president to make a change. What advice do you
have for them,
in terms of a child wanted to meet the president? Let's do the second
part. First, you know what that's is, where you're very fortunate.
Something like happens, people have written to the President, and
probably a million people have written, and one of that million
letters gets taken out. So yes, you know, through organizations,
through
ministers, through diplomatic people. So people want influence,
you can send a letter, and you're lucky, you'll get called. And
sometimes the President is walking through some area, visiting area,
and somebody runs out and he will sit down and say, Okay, I'll check
that. That's totally by chance. It's a lucky package, as you call
it, in terms of people wanting to spend money, they want to do it
themselves. It's important to note that sometimes that can cause a
bigger problem. Because you're going to an area, you decided, he
decided, she decided, you all decided they want to go to the
same area, and all the people go to the same place. Now, through
organizations, we have records. We know which area in a specific
district got and which the stick doesn't get. And because we have
so much influence, and because we have a footprint in the virtual in
the entire country, we know exactly how to use your money. And
with your money, us can get much more value, because when we buy in
bulk, we have an influence. We can buy things at a much cheaper
price. That's on the one side, but on the other side, yes, you can
still read yourself. And where you can read yourself is in your own
neighborhood, because you may know of a friend or a family member or
somebody in the next street that, because of covid, 19 lost their
job. And it'll be such a blessing that, in a very dignified manner,
you go to my friend across the road and say, You know what? I
know you're battling. I know the kids haven't eaten anything. It's
not a shame.
Know it's covid 19 is not in your control. You don't need to bring
the virus upon yourself. Yes, something I brought you either a
voucher or some food parcel or some money, and you can buy for
you and your family what you need. In that case, in fact, I encourage
that. Yeah, where people don't have to give the money to us, go
to people in your area and start off with your own family. It may
be your sister's child. It may be and the religion tells you have
King first Ketan kin first, then the neighbor and the orphans and
old people. So do that. If you want to do it yourself, please go
and do it and encourage it right now, because you won't believe it.
A lot of people that you think are okay are in a really, really bad
position right now. Thank you so much for your time to take your
time to speak to newsroom Africa. It's a hustle and bustle here in
Peter maritsburg at this warehouse where, of course, you're getting
ready to send out those relief packs across the country and
continue this work into the new year. Of course, dr, MPs,
Suleiman's a final message, the founder and director of the gift
of the givers is to help people unconditionally for newsroom
Africa on Channel 405,
I'm Corinda Jack Mahan in petermaritzburg. You.