Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers speaks on charitable giving in South Africa
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The speakers emphasize the importance of helping people in a critical time, researching charity and finding out about the best charity to choose, as small groups and groups of people may not speak about it. They stress the need for people to find out about charity and make contributions to smaller groups, as well as the challenges of society due to COVID-19. The importance of researching and finding out who the best charity to choose is for one's family is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Let's bring you this now. I mean, despite tough financial time,
South Africans are still willing to give to those in need. And
this, according to a recent study conducted by the charity AIDS
Foundation South Africa and one of the organizations based on for
lending a helping hand here at home as well as abroad, is gift
all the givers. CEO, doctor, MT, Suleiman joins me now to have this
discussion and Doc, thank you so much for your time this morning. I
think this is quite a heartwarming conversation, especially after
we've just played that bite of a man known also for his charitable
you know efforts the late Archbishop Desmond. Do do we also
know that even during Financial Times such as a pandemic,
according to the study, people are still charitable.
Yes, my morning,
people, actually, South Africans generally, are very, very
charitable people. I mean, the times are the most difficult you
can count on, on them to come to the fore. This discussion we've
had in not with you, but generally the discussion was raised pre
covid In March, 2020
and people said it's going to be a tough time. But covid, and when
lockdown came and jobs were lost, people say it's going to be a very
tough time for charitable organizations. And we said at that
time, no, none. It's not. That's not going to be the case for us,
for you know. And unfortunately, yes, the more we respond, it
means, the more the crisis they are. That's just a sad part about
what we do. But our support has been incredible, from South
Africans, from ordinary people, and even to the credit of the
corporates, I think they've never responded like this in the history
before. Yeah, the support from the corporates has been phenomenal.
And even from those professional people, people from in different
companies, ordinary people, school children, people in all age homes,
pensioners. Everyone said, Look, we haven't got lot of them will
phone and say we don't have much. We want to do something. We want
to play our part. And that's the thing that drives our Africans.
Everyone who wants to play their part. It doesn't matter how much
they give, but collectively, it makes a huge difference, right? I
think when people think of, you know, charity might be an
intimidating word that, oh, it means big budgets in the millions,
but I have to say, I've seen South Africans literally offering a warm
plate to their next door neighbor, someone knowing a group of,
perhaps young people on the streets who need a warm coffee, a
hot coffee, or even a warm meal, gathering friends in their small
group, you know, being charitable. So we've seen those acts even in
small numbers, intimate groupings, right? Doc, where charity doesn't
mean millions of budgets, but also where you are seeing a need,
identifying it and filling in that
gap, most certainly you hit it on the head. You know, even a smile
is charity? Yeah, charity, to me, is something that makes a
difference to somebody's lives. Sometimes. Let's take counseling.
For example, people will be having a problem for 15 or 20 years, too
scared to raise the broach the issue, the subject, and they some
one day, they get the confidence and they speak. We, we run our own
counseling service too, but it may be even outside the counseling
service, somebody calls and speaks, and within five minutes of
a good word, you know, some encouragement. People realize I've
been carrying this burden for 15 years and it took five minutes to
solve but that five minutes has changed the perspective that
person's life motivated it empowered that person. That person
becomes a product of human being, because the worst kind of possible
problem to have is emotional and psychological stress, you know,
and that holds it down completely, like the stress that has come to
cover itself, that the fear, the anxiety, has just slowed people
down completely. So the good work and supporting a person is a huge
form of charity, because once the mind and the soul is working well,
the rest of the body will function, irrespective of the
challenges that we have around us. Absolutely, for those who are
watching this conversation also thinking, How do I get charitable?
Where do I contribute? Because, you know, money is quite a
sensitive, you know, subject. Obviously, we're in financial
difficulties at this time during the covid. You want to make sure
that when you give to an organization, Doc, it goes to the
right hands, it does meet the needs that is promised to do so if
I'm looking for a charity organization, how can I affiliate
myself with a charity organization that is ethical?
You if you want to make the selection, you know, once you look
it, because you you the person who wants to choose the organization,
will probably see the name somewhere, or heard about it, or
did you know from friend, they need to investigate the charity
itself. Go and look for some on social media to see the kind of
thing that charity has been doing, what the people have said about
it. Get information from those who mentioned charity. So you need to
do your research. You know, the whether the organization is small,
middle or big, you need to do your research. That's one of the
aspects. But secondly, right now, in the crisis times, the best
charity you can do is your own family, you know, and friends and
neighbors, because a lot of people will not speak. They will not say
they're in hard times, in difficult times, you may hear via
the great point, and the best thing you can do is to find out,
maybe even your brother, your sister, yeah, maybe the neighbor
next door. It may be somebody down the street. You don't have to go
long distances to do things, you know. So let's start with those
close to you. It may be the parent or the child of your school, or
friend of your child's friend at school, you know. Maybe somebody
in.
In that category, and that's if you do that quietly in a very
dignified way, that's the best charity you can do, because you're
doing it directly with your own hand to people you come to know
about. And that brings somebody, it brings social cohesion, it
brings goodness, it brings spirituality. It helps the person.
When you want to do more than that, and you got surplus, then,
okay, you can look at the names, at the system I told you, see who
the charities are. In addition to that, a lot of institutions have
gone to great difficulty. Now, orphanages, all age homes, homes
for the physically and homes of the physically and mentally
challenged, some of the institutions have gone to great
difficulty. So if we go and you know, and find those institutions,
would find that people have been hungry in those institutions for
quite some time, they've been having difficulty before covid.
Covid can cause more desperation, because they needed funding for
PPEs and, you know, sanitizer, additional costs, which they don't
have for and then they're the companies that are supporting them
sort of collapse so there's no money for food. And I'm telling
you all these things because it's what we've experienced. I'm giving
you examples of what we've been experiencing for the last two
years, how people have collapsed. And then, of course, you have the
soup kitchens, because schools closed, there's no feeding scheme
at school. And those children come in queues, you know? And the queue
gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And eventually the parents come
with the kids, those kids in the queue. So we have to look around
and research our own societies. First, it's less costly to handle
in your own vicinity than to go somewhere further out. And we all
certificates do that in our own vicinity. Will hold each other's
hand upwards. Yeah, Doc, during this festive period, what would
you say has been the one need that the gift of the givers has seen
much more intensity in a much bigger need for particularly
during this festive season,
it's the same every year. It's food. You know, food is is a big
need, because, again, the names I mentioned institutions, they're
afraid that their funds run low in that period of time. And some
would ask for, you know, some toys to give kids, but, but for the
last two years, since covid, nobody's asking for anything else.
They're not saying, Give me clothes. Don't give me toys, give
me party packs, although we still do that. But the pre dominant
requirement, or basically the only requirement, is food. People have
lost their jobs. They're coming home from different provinces, for
example, to Eastern Cape. Right now they don't have funding to
bring home to their families. It's difficulty. So food, we will roll
out 5000 food parcels, you know, just for a few days before
Christmas to different institutions, but we've known out
almost 600,000 forecasters over the last one and a half year
because of the hunger and hundreds of soup kitchens that we
supported. Well, of course, I appreciate you speaking to us, and
appreciate the work that you continue to do. Doctor intra
Suleiman, of gift of the givers talking us about charity work,
especially the need that they have had to meet mostly during this
period. So.