Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers’ warning of the malnutrition crisis in South Africa

Let's go to this conversation now. Gift of the givers, imtia Suleiman

is warning of malnutrition crisis in South Africa. Now, the covid 19

pandemic has further exacerbated the inequalities with calls to

address food security growing louder and louder. Now, the United

Nations Children's Fund says in the absence of decisive and timely

action. Covid 19 will result globally in a 15% rise in the

number of children needing critical nutrition services.

Doctor MTS Suleiman, founder of gift of the givers, joins us live

now. Thank you so much for your time. Doctor Sullivan, let's start

with you know, because you're always on the ground paints a

picture for us of how bad it is.

Good evening, the picture is bad. You know, you monitor that by the

number of calls and requests that you get for assistance. That's the

best way. And for the last few months, in fact, for quite some

time post covid, it was during covid, but post covid, we're

getting calls for more soup kitchens for many parts of the

country, large parts of the Eastern Cape, especially rural

parts of Eastern Cape. And then, of course, from from Northern

Cape, the calls have been calling in, the emails have been calling

in, again, very, very rural, quite a few parts of free state,

especially on the eastern side. The the request for a number of

people coming to a soup kitchen since before, it used to be like

once a week. Now they need to do it four or five times a week. It

should be 100 people. Nicely to one people. The school principals

are telling us that the kids that come to school, that's the only

meals that they have when they go home, there's no meals for them

and there's no meat meals for the parents. And another large

category of people are university students from all over and hunger

classes. It's been growing among university students who say

they've got academic tuition, they've got their textbooks,

they've got their transport, but they got no food and they can't

concentrate. And the other emerging phenomena is hunger in

the middle class, a lot of people have lost jobs. They've lost the

have taken the deduction in income. It is a joint income, the

cost of inflation, the interest rates, you know, the fuel price,

so they have less money to buy food and to pay for school fees

and other such items and healthcare. And you find that

there is hunger in those homes. But because of the status being

middle class and not lower class, a lot of people sit in in and

suffer in silence because of that hunger, and when you then are

listening to some of these calls that you then would be receiving,

I mean, you're saying that people asking for soup kitchens to be

about four times a week instead of one. Is this a an admission by

them that there is no help at all on the ground, what? What is

happening in terms of some of the responses that government should

be putting in place to be able to assist there with food parcels or

something?

The strange thing is, government that's calling us quite often.

It's mayors and councilors are not quite honest and say, June, you

know, the situation in the country, municipalities are

dysfunctional. They say, it's not a secret, it's a fact. Lots of

municipalities are bankrupt. We don't have the means. We need

support from central government, but everybody needs a support from

national government, all the big institutions, SOEs, everybody

needs help. And they said, look, we've lost a lot of jobs. A lot of

industries have closed, and there's no new industries coming

in our areas. So our people like the mercy of, you know, of

handouts, and a lot of people, especially in black communities,

you know, their family members from other parts of the country

would send money or would send food, but they've lost their jobs,

or the income income is cut here, or the expense of a increase, so

they have less money or less disposable income to buy more food

for those areas. So the municipalities are helpless. The

people are helpless, the family members are helpless. It's it's

just the donors and those who have means the generosity of those that

are keeping in these these people sustained, of course, and the need

is growing until we address unemployment and get more jobs

created and had more money coming to the areas, this problem is

going to get far worse. How then do South Africans begin to respond

to this crisis? Because if you're even getting calls from

government, it tells you just how dire the situation is on the

ground.

Yes, you know it's South Africans have to start well, not they have.

The South Africans have done well. South Africans have gone out of

the way to assist, but it starts with in your own families, because

quite often it may be even in your own family, it may be a cousin, a

relative you know, and everyone can take care of a few people.

Helps. Check with your domestics, check with your staff in your

work, check with the neighbors down the road and the community.

We can't help everybody, that's the reality, but you can have

those closest to you, those who are family, those who are in the

streets, in the neighborhood, and those who are in companies. We

need to do that in the best way possible, to assist, but of

course, then to to organizations that are directly in the

grassroots, helping, helping men, women and children. The other

thing that we can do, and this is a call to corporate south.

Africa, you know. Take it an extra salaried person into your into

your employee. Take youth you know, and give them a stipend, and

give them skills. And it's introduce them into your company.

It will not only be about giving them a stipend, it will be about

giving themselves as team, giving them skills, giving them

experience, giving them trust in themselves to make a start, you

know, and it's a business expense. So all corporate companies, we ask

you in South Africa, employ one youth, you know, a youth plays a

role in the family, and let's try to do that even in the farms. You

know, I was, I was at a conference on Friday asking farmers also to

take in youth and teach them and give them skills. And with farming

skills, of course, you learn agriculture. What agriculture you

learn plenty of food, but plenty of food, there's food security. So

while they may not be money to buy a range of items, but with

different seeds and different plants and different crops, you at

least can have something to sustain yourself, to prevent

illness and malnutrition from lack of food and from food insecurity.

Those are the kind of things that we can do in the country where at

least somebody has something to eat at least once a day. And

Doctor Sullivan, in light of all of this, I mean, you're thinking

about parents who've lost their jobs, and as you say, some of them

are too ashamed to even ask for help. You think of university

students. You think of some of you know, people in communities. What

is the situation like with the little ones, you know, the

children. How bad are things there?

It's very critical. Up to right now, the kids have been dying of

malnutrition, especially in Eastern Cape. If you check on the

hospitals, you check with the health department, you check with

the doctors, a lot of children have been dying from malnutrition,

especially in rural Eastern Cape. And when you ask why, it's you

know, it's heartbreaking. They die because for adults, it's quite

normal to be hungry. Hungry is the norm. It's the standard that they

don't eat. And when they don't have food, that same hunger passes

on to a child, because they don't have the means to pay for food for

their child, and they will survive, but the child will come

to a clinic a little too late and come to a hospital too late, and

the child will die because there's just not enough food, and there's

no patient education about the dangers of malnutrition. And we've

partnered with the health department, with dietitians to go

out and try to educate people to say this is a problem. You know

what? We need to identify this early, but you can identify it,

but if you don't have the means to sustain it or to feed What do you

do? Fortunately, we had what is called Easy peanut paste. It's a

product with proteins and micronutrients. It provides energy

instantly for children and adults. When we started using it, the

company that makes it is a Norwegian company. They saw the

product on our social media pages, and it gave us 25 million Rand

worth of free product to assess people, you know, and children,

men, women, children. We're very, very grateful for that. We're very

grateful to corporate companies who bring some maize and flour and

people who bring fruit and vegetables, whatever we can get.

And as I said, if South Africans individually can do it in the

areas around them, and no will happen whichever way we can

collectively, we need to feed, but there's a lot of hungry children.

I mean, we extensively involved in Eastern Cape, but I guess, and

then I'm almost certain, but the cause we get it from Northern Cape

and parts of free state that this problem is going to extend. Hey,

what about Western Cape? We got 90 soup kitchens in the Western Cape

alone. You know, we not be malnourished children like in

Eastern Cape and what we are expecting to see the Northern

Cape, but nevertheless, there's hunger even in the Western Cape

and throughout the country, more and more calls multiply, please.

Can you give us a soup kitchen? And I hope those calls are heeded.

You know, Doctor Sullivan thinking about little ones who are really

bearing the brunt of what's going on here and how desperate the

situation is on the ground, and I do hope that things improve soon.

Thank you so much for your time. Do appreciate it. That is Dr

Imtiaz Suleiman, founder of gift of the givers.