Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers on stand to assist earthquakeravaged Morocco

For more on this. We're now joined by Dr Imtiaz Suleiman, founder of

the gift of the givers, and he joins us for this conversation via

our video link. Dr Imtiaz, thank you so much for joining us here on

the late edition. Perhaps let's start off here. What are your

thoughts when it comes to the tragedy that has struck the people

of Morocco?

Well, every tragedy like this, it's, you know, it's

heartbreaking, it's tough for the people, for the families, for the

country, for the government. There's a huge loss of life.

There's more than five and 2900

people have already passed on. There's more than 5000 or five and

a half 1000 people injured. And you know, there's people still

missing in the level. We don't know whether they are alive or

deceased. So it's, it's a huge tragedy. It's complicated because

it's in the mountains. It reminds me of the earthquake that was in

Pakistan, eight October. 2005 reminds me of the earthquake that

was in Nepal, in the mountains. Again, you know, in 2015 very

complicated to work in the mountains stuff, and you need all

the resources and get the areas as soon as you can get but of course,

we we've offered the Moroccan government, as many governments

and NGOs throughout the world have done, offered assistance. We're

just waiting to see what the decision is going to be. Yeah, and

I was coming to that exactly because I heard you there on my

colleagues package saying that you will not impose yourself when it

comes to assistance in Morocco. Have they responded? Or perhaps,

when are you expecting them to respond?

Well, there's this big scar of messages. You know, our ambassador

Ibrahim iris in Rabat spoke to them, you know, to people within

the engineering ministry. I The our DJ, spoke to the ambassador.

People from intelligent inspector general of intelligence, spoke to

the ambassador and the deputy ambassador. I spoke to the deputy

ambassador, and the current message is sent out that, you

know, we are taking limited assistance from friendly

countries. You must read the messages we have accepted

assistance from Spain, UK, UAE and cattle, and on a day by day basis,

we'll decide if we need any more assistance, if we don't want to

complicate the area. It's very complicated, you know, because we

can't access the area. So that's the publication. So the replies,

they the sort of replies come back. You know, we appreciate your

personal job of assistance rather more we've only accepted from four

countries. Yeah, and you know, should the Moroccan government

respond as early as yesterday when it comes to the teams you have

prepared, you know, how many teams, or how many people will you

be sending to Morocco to assist that country?

Right now we have 33 people on standby, 28 search and rescue. And

as you mentioned beginning in your introduction, four of them are

from CPU, t cp. UT is a partner to us. They also have their own

equipment, which assists in getting more equipment on site.

The second team that's going to be joining us for the first time is

halting EMRs. You know, they they also come with only 4.6 people

from them, and then the rest is our teams wait up from the people

from Limpopo

Province, from state and other parts of the country, many of them

work in government facilities. And we encourage taking people that

work in government facilities, because it upskills Our people and

it trains them further for the public service, the other big

addition is the canines from the saps SAP is becoming a permanent

part of our infrastructure. Now they came with us to Turkey, and

now the Deputy National commissioner has released five

dogs and five handlers to come with us. So altogether, 28 search

and rescue personnel, many of the paramedics, you know, people

trained in structural collapse, five dog handlers and five dogs.

And behind that, if necessary, we've told the Moroccan government

that if your medical guys need assistance, we've got hundreds of

health workers, you know, on standby for different skills come

on board. And in addition to that, we can help a material aid for 10s

blankets, medicines, food and all those kind of items once you're on

site and Dr Intel's, I mean, when it comes to a rescue mission of

this nature, I mean, you've already spoken about that, it

reminds you of Nepal in 2015 it also reminds you of the quake In

Pakistan. What goes into, you know, trying to assist a nation,

especially one that is so mountainous,

it's very complicated, you know, and But the fortunate part about

this mountain, the houses in this mountain, they're not, they're not

high houses, more single story or double storey houses, which makes

it a little easier. In Turkey, it wasn't a mountain. It was flat,

but it was 12 storey buildings that pancake in two minutes. You

only saw two floors. The other 10 were missing. You know, it

crumbled completely. And in Nepal, it is very, very complicated. You

couldn't get to the areas the helicopters could enrich people

could enrich.

Is exhausting. It takes a long time, and by the time you

eventually get to the people, in some cases, you don't even worry

anymore. You know, it's a good crew to say. You just people are

Budd in the bubble, and you know, you're never going to get them

out, because you can't reach them in this place. It seems look

besides the borders on the road, it looks like the area is

accessible, because they are getting to several areas. But they

need to move more faster. We probably don't have enough

equipment. I mean, enough manpower, or the terrain is far

more complicated that we can see through the pictures, but every

day, they are making some progress, and the offer we've

made, I mean, mentioned in the beginning is we're not imposing

ourselves on you. We certainly don't come and be, you know, a

burden on your head, but if you need assistance, and by the time

you open those roads, your armed forces are going to be exhausted

because it's tough going and walking to rubber. And secondly,

emotionally, it's it's hard to see people coming out from the rubber,

either in displaced or deceased. And worse than that is the people

around you know, call you will say, My son is caught up in the

building. My baby is right there, my family spot up and everybody

follows at the same time. It's very emotional, exhausting at that

point. If you open it up for 14 from several countries, they can

access areas. And there's a chance, I think we'll stop

fighting live people even eight or 10 days later, because it's a

single and double story building stock more than that. And Doctor

Imtiaz, another tragedy you had to deal with not so long ago here in

South Africa, in the city of Johannesburg, was indeed when we

saw that building in the Johannesburg CBD going up in

flames. Perhaps, if you can just give us, you know, an update when

it comes to you know, your help there to the various families

who've been affected by that fire

in South Africa, we always wait for disaster management to spot

first. Remember, our team members are also within disaster

management within the different structures in the country. So as a

rule, we don't jump in first. We always wait for disaster

management to get in. And in virtually 100% of the cases, they

call us to support them. In cases of fire, while the firefighting

takes a long time, the first request always is, can you please

support the firefighters with liquids, energy drinks, energy

biscuits and hot meals? And we generally do that. We've done it

many times in 2017

with the National Fire. You support the 1200 firefighters

twice a day, but energy drinks and energy biscuits, but and meals

every day in the UCT fires, we support the firefighters again for

those fires, and then in last year, November, we support the

firefighters. And we brought in additional personnel to support

the firefighters. So we supported the firefighters. They did an

excellent job. Yeah, in evening, once the fire was settled, we were

waiting for the know, the residents survivors, to go to

shelters, and when the busses came, many of them did not want to

go for two reasons. One is they were afraid that what positions

are left in the building will disappear. And remember, these are

poor people, these are their lives, positions. And secondly,

the foreign nationals. They were not only foreign nationals. In

survey, there were many South Africans in the Berlin also a

foreign nationals were afraid they will be taken to a trusted camp

and they will be deported. So they did not want to get in a bus.

Issue of trust and suspicion. Eventually, that night, 190

people did move, and they went to three different shelters. We

provided mattresses, blankets, food and support for them. And to

cut a long story short, we supported them. Till Sunday, more

people started coming. You know, eventually the figure supported

more than 300 from the county. There were 425, people in Italy,

but over 300 eventually went to the shelters, and we supported the

brightest. All right then, Dr Imtiaz, thank you so much for your

time. Thank.