Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers speaks on charitable giving in South Africa

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.