Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers GlowTV Daily News 25 May 2021

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.

Thank you for watching glow TV. You