Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers GlowTV Daily News 25 May 2021
AI: Summary ©
The current COVID-19 crisis in India is being faced by states allowing for limited on-site registration and appointments for vaccine. The union Health Ministry has been helping countries with the crisis by providing assistance and providing media coverage. The pandemic crisis is highlighted as a way to support disaster relief efforts. The success of their disaster response team and their specialized equipment for various types of work is also highlighted. The diverse disaster Intervention organization in the world, including their own boat and life swimmers, their own specialized life and breathing equipment, and their use of portable equipment to move items is also discussed. The speaker mentions their involvement in various foreign relations and foreign aid projects, including their recent digital film release and upcoming film release Sw convince.
AI: Summary ©
Music, welcome to glow TV for the daily India report that brings you
glimpses of the changing India.
In our first story, the union government has beefed up the
campaign to vaccinate the country against covid 19. New Delhi has
told state governments on 24th may to do limited on site registration
for covid 19 vaccine for 18 to 44 age group, to not let doses go
waste because of no shows. States in India have said that some
unutilized covid 19 vaccine doses may get expired. So India, on 24th
May has allowed limited on site registration and appointments for
vaccination for the 18 to 44 year age group, only at government
centers. The additional on site registrations and appointments
will be at the discretion of respective states and union
territories. India's union Health Ministry said there are unutilized
vaccine doses as some online registrants do not show up, and
these will be offered to on site registrants to minimize wastage.
During India's independence an incident in the South African city
of pitamaritzburg turned Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi into Mahatma for
India a little more than 100 years later, the South African city now
boasts of another good Samaritan, a third generation person of
Indian origin, whose globally renowned NGO, called gift of the
givers, is putting together a significant aid and medical
supplies package for motherland India to help fight the covid 19
crisis. Founder of gift of the givers, Doctor India Suliman, says
he quit medical practice in 1994 after being spiritually instructed
in 1992 to create a unique disaster relief organization that
works unconditionally. We've assisted 44 countries. And without
exaggeration, 44 countries, including South Africa. And
without exaggeration, we've had millions of people in all these
countries we've supported. Let's one of the countries we have India
was the earthquake in Gujarat many years ago, I think it was in 2001
then we offered assistance with the tsunami of 2004 but at that
point, the Indian government took a decision that it was not
accepting any international aid. The end of an islands were
affected at that point, and this is the third time offering
assistance. Now with covid 19 in India, the aid we collect
predominantly comes from South Africans. We don't actively look
for money. We don't phone people. We don't have street collections.
We don't have paid advertising for money. Yes, we have a lot of media
coverage in South Africa. We get the biggest amount of media
coverage in this country, so people talk about our projects.
The media even travels with us. When we go to disasters, they come
with us. All the different correspondence from the different
South African media travel with us, and some international media
have also traveled with us some other parts of the world. So they
say what we do, and they show what we do, and people on their own
come to us. Up till recently, you can say almost totally 99.9% of
money was from South Africa. The point 1% to social media, some
citizen in some other part of the world will see what you're doing,
thinks he likes what you're doing, and give you a five euro or over
five pound, or a 10 pound or $100 but during covid 19 last year,
when we got involved in a very, very big way in our country, a
businesses that have, they had offices in countries in other
parts of the world, took notice of what we're doing, and suddenly
there was an interest from America, from UK, from Europe as a
beginning to start supporting some of our projects that we're doing.
And now we find that there's more and more interest from other
companies from outside South Africa that are very interested.
And of course, a lot of citizens who don't really know us, but have
read about us on social media or made the contributions and Hadi
No, take my hats out to that, because you just can't make a
contribution to something you don't know. But these people, a
lot of them, have been making contributions to us, and we really
appreciate about that gift of the givers is geared up to meet any
disaster. For an earthquake, we're sending our own search and rescue
teams. We have our own specialized equipment. One of the equipment is
called the the life locator. We put the box on the ground, a very
small box, size of a laptop. It will, in three minutes, tell you
who is alive 10 meters under the rubble. We have advanced, advanced
equipment. In old days, you have to wait for everybody to keep
quiet so you can hear sounds in the rubber. We now have special
types of audio cams that go into the rubber and pick up sounds. So
we are very specialized equipment. So such an industry is the first
team that will go across what that it will be followed by medical
teams. The medical teams will be trauma medical teams, including
general surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, if necessary,
neurosurgery.
As theater nurses, ICU nurses, general doctors, gynecologists,
you know, general practitioners, primary health care. Nurses,
inevitably in a disaster. Besides the trauma medicine, there's a lot
of primary health care that has to be done. People still have the
diabetes, they still have high blood pressure, they still have
asthma, they have minor wounds, they have abrasions, all that kind
of neat things need things need attention, and, of course, any
status travel with the surgical teams. That's as also sometimes so
that we have course of rehab teams and and a later stage trauma
counselors. What those two teams we take the general supplies,
food, medicine, blankets, tents, sometimes clothing, towels,
hygiene packs. And sometimes also we make vaccines available, you
know, for for tetanus and other types of
requirements in a disaster zone, like what we did in Sri Lanka, we
actually flew vaccines from India and to Sri Lanka and from Dubai
into Sri Lanka in 2004 so it all depends on what type of
requirements are there. But in essence, we take everything in
floods. We have our own boat people. People can go under to
dive in the water. We have our own specialized, you know, advanced
life support swimmers. We're going to the water with boats or jet
skis or pedal boats. And recently, in cylonide, which affected
Mozambique in 2019
we were the only people in the world in Mozambique that had six
helicopters. We had our own helicopters, which we hired, and
we had ground crews. We had our own satellite equipment, we had
water crews and we had medical teams, all at the same time
providing assistance. So assistance is very diversified. We
are the most diverse disaster intervention organization in the
world, and we're not. We're a total field hospital, not a mobile
hospital. At a mobile hospital, you need to have big equipment to
move more generators, to move containers. We're a field
hospital. Our items are very portable. We carry it in the
plane, either in the hole or in the in
storage section or inside of the passenger section. And we got
portable equipment to the point that we can get off an airport and
actually do surgery on the airport itself, what ICU facilities and
everything in the tents that we blow up and, you know, just build
up from the cargo hold. We don't need specialized, big equipment to
move stuff. That's a level of our arrangement and readiness in any
disaster, we have 220
volunteers, medical, search and rescue and all the different
fields I mentioned, on standby, and we can move at very short
notice anyway. In the world, Doctor Suleiman hails from an
accomplished and multicultural family like Gandhi. His great
grandfather migrated from Gujarat. His mother was a pioneer radio
jockey for the first Indian language radio service called
Lotus FM on South African Broadcasting Corporation under
apartheid regime. He is working very closely with South African
and Indian governments to send the much needed oxygen concentrators
and later see pap machines to India. We've done many, many
missions, what the South African government, where sometimes the
people from dirko International, then our deco international
relations, travel with us, or even people from the president's office
travel with us. That has been going on for years. All the
diplomatic work, all the arrangements through our embassy,
whether in South Africa to talk to the affected country, embassy or
high commission. And in the country that we go into our
embassy or High Commission in that country, talks to that government,
that country. So in this process, in this specific one for India, we
spoke to a man called mister shock Babu, his Indian consul general in
Cape Town. We tried to speak to the high commission, but he's ill,
so we couldn't speak to him. But people in his commission have
spoken to us. We've spoken to people, somebody who was the ex
hyen Consul General from Cape Town, who works in the prime
minister's office in India. We've had relationships and talking to
him. And then our international relations, or foreign relations,
whatever you call it, that side, external relations, people have
been talking to the Indian government and in the embassy in
the High Commission in South Africa, and through our High
Commission in India, talking to the government in India. And of
course, we've spoken to oxygen organizations on the ground in
India and seeing what's required. But the message has come back
clear that for goods to move the fastest and easiest way is from
our government, what our government through the Indian
government, and given to the Red Cross in India. So we're now
preparing for the first consignment this week of oxygen
concentrators to go and Qatar airlines. As part of the
arrangements, we're looking at oxygen concentrators which we've
already purchased. People have donated, and we have substantial
amount of about 120 of those so far. And you know, it's difficult
to access because our countries went to the third wave. Now also
then, of course, oxygen cylinders. We look at getting oxygen
cylinders here, and we can get that. We'll send it by ship, and
more concentrators by ship. In the meantime, in Mumbai, we managed to
get some BiPAP machines, which we bought in Mumbai, which we using
in hospital called Central Hospital in the in Mumbai. And
then we've had other people who've contacted.
US, they've managed to source oxygen concentrators inside India
already, that is within the spec. The other challenge was that the
specs kept on changing, so we have to make sure that we conform to
the specs given by the health ministry in India. And now, I
think we finally got the right confirmation of the right type of
spec, and we now busy purchasing concentrators in India to start
the process, Dr Suleiman and his gift of the givers continue to
work with Indian government agencies and mission in South
Africa on a possible aid of 4000 CPAP machines that could prove
vital for hospitals in an impending third covid 19 wave,
even before its release in theaters, star studded Gujarati
rom com, swagatam was released on shimarumi last week, popular
digital platform shimarumi launched a Gujarati movie,
swagatam as the digital first release before going to theaters.
The digital premiere was on May 20. The Platform recently
announced a lot of new content with the lineup of blockbuster
movies plays original web series. Swagatam is a thriller rom com and
a twisted family saga that is dark and the family considers madness
as normal. That's all for this bulletin of daily India Report.
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