Imtiaz Sooliman – Humanitarians meet to share critical skills
AI: Summary ©
The Stellenbosch University conference on humanitarian disaster aims to help people learn and upskill their skills and bring their own values to the country. The speakers emphasize the importance of adapting skills and environments to help save lives, finding a passion for their work and finding their own values. They plan to conduct a conference in the coming days to discuss their skills and environment, and emphasize the need to upskill their own country and support their people. The speakers emphasize the importance of finding a team that understands the needs of all members and practicing compassion and empathy, and the potential for disaster relief and a team that understands the needs of all members.
AI: Summary ©
Welcome back. The planet has seen its fair share of natural and man
made disasters. Often the first to respond are humanitarian aid
workers. Right the gift of the givers. They are usually the super
the superheroes for the world, not even just South Africa. They've
been dealing with disasters for over 30 years now. It's now
teaming up with Stellenbosch University's Center for Global
surgery to host a two day conference. It'll look at South
Africa's preparedness to deal with humanitarian disasters. Senior
Reporter destin TA is at that gathering in the mother city,
joining us now, of course, for an update. Good morning to you,
Destin. I mean, you yourself were with the gift of the givers in
Turkey. So you were front and center witnessing what it is
humanitarian aid workers are very much capable of. What can we
expect from this particular conference that you are now at?
You're very right. Morena, and I can tell you just being there.
It's absolutely fascinating to watch. You know that the the gift
of the givers team, is known as the dream team, because they make
things happen wherever they go, both locally and internationally,
and they've earned that reputation. In fact, even if you
just follow social media pages, you'll notice how South Africans
back this organization, and they believe in them due to the work
that they have been doing over the time that you mentioned, over 30
years, and that's what we're talking about. But this time
around, this is an opportunity for that very foundation led by Doctor
MTR Suleiman, to share these skills, to talk to delegates.
There are more than 300 delegates that are here, and they'll be
discussing a number of things. Doctor Suleiman has stressed that
it's not just a medical conference. This is about talking,
talking about those skills and how they can be adapted to these very
unpredictable situations. But I'm going to let him do the speaking.
He's just come off the stage a short while ago. He lived with the
keynote address, Doctor Suleman always a pleasure to chat to you a
very moving address a short while ago, in your words, the point of a
conference like this and bringing together all of these very skilled
individuals. Well, all thanks. Go to standalone botch University. We
never even thought about it. And Professor Kathleen Chu who was
opening speaker with us, came to me one day and she said, why don't
we share the skills? Why don't we teach the nation? Everybody calls
and says, what happens? How does it happen? Why does it happen?
What happens on site? And to me, it was a brilliant idea, because
we last really went on mission in 2019 except, except the tech
earthquake. And later, we couldn't send medical teams because most
people had passed on so it was a time to get our group together.
And you will notice over the next two days how my teams gel. They
want family, they want community. And we said, this is a great
opportunity, first of all, to educate ourselves, to remind
ourselves, because since cyclone, they die, we haven't really been
involved, right? So just to reactivate our own skills. And at
the same time, why not share? Because, you know, we're not going
to live forever, and we want the skills to pass on to the new
generation, to upskill our country, to support our people and
to give them, also to build in new people, to bring that spirit of
Ubuntu, that, yes, this is life saving, but it's also you can
discover life in it. Are you prepared to risk your life to save
somebody else? This is the ultimate challenge, and I think it
just went down exceptionally well. Dr surabhan, you're talking about
skills. We know that there are 1000s of skilled professionals in
the country, but what's different about the work that you do, and
what you keep saying is that you need to adapt those skills, and
you made these various examples. And I think, for those who may not
know when they might be seeing just the end product that you've
saved this many lives, or you've built a hospital here, talk to us
about what it takes to adapt those skills, and what are the
environments that we are talking about environment. Let's start on
the second part. For us, environments are risky, war,
earthquake, ability can fall in your wallet to go inside,
hurricanes, floods, people who are angry, people who are anxious,
people who need help. Everybody wants you in the same place at the
same time, so to deal with that temperament, calm mind, thinking
on your feet, working as a team. No individuality in terms of ego,
individuality in terms of your own skill, but not in terms of ego.
How to, how to, as I said, think on your feet, spirituality, faith,
compassion, care, understanding. You can be a highly skilled
professional, top class surgeon in the country and in the world, but
if you don't have these skills of the right attitude, the right
approach. You're not on my team, and you're going to be growing
that during the the course of this, this conference. But you
spoke about a number of things, and in particular, you spoke
about, you know, for example, the reception that the gift of the
givers foundation gets in other parts of the world. And there's a
perception sometimes that maybe we don't have all of the technology.
We don't have all of the resources in Africa, but the foundation,
through its members, is changing. That the most important thing that
we approach for or recognize for by governments, by civil servants
on the ground, and by the recipients of our intervention.
They tell the words they use this you guys are different.
And and we ask them, like, What do you mean by we are different? And
they tell us, there's compassion in your people. Lot of teams come
here and they don't even touch our patients. They look at us there
was like, with some kind of disease. And you guys come, you
touch our patients, you hold our children, you wipe our nose. My a
dozen, even journalists like you. You know that our journalists also
show that kind of compassion, and that can only mean one thing, that
you come from a country that has a spirit of compassion, that has a
spirit of Ubuntu, that runs between medical teams, surgical
teams, surgeons, journalists, you know, media allied stuff.
Everybody has got it together. There's no weak link. And
everybody has a same, same type of approach. They tell us, you treat
us with love, you treat us with dignity, you show us care, you
give us quality items we feel as part of the family. We heal when
we see you. And it's not again about professional skill, it's
about attitude. And just over the next two days, what for you will
make this a successful conference. So to rephrase that, what type of
people would you like to see leaving this conference and then
taking those skills into their respective places of work? The
type of people I want to be it's better image of gift of the givers
teams. First of all, I want my own teams to be invigorated. Secondly,
we need to understand that all the team members didn't go on every
mission. And for the first time, team members are going to see what
their members did on other missions, because when you bring a
team back from one mission, there's no point in the other guys
in because they have no idea what happened. It's a pointless
exercise. But for the first time, after years, they've all had the
skills in different missions, and it's about the same thing,
basically, and they will now share that information. I like. I see
there's a lot of young people here. It's good to see the young
generation get involved. We want to this message to go to medical
schools and to align Health Sciences, you know,
phototherapist, dietitians, occupational therapists, because
this will expand. And the big thing that's going to expand in
the future is Psychology. You know, for second, the trauma of
the this secondary traumatization in first responders and also to
people on the ground. I want that field to expand. You know, which
area we haven't developed yet. It's still work in progress. But
above all, everybody will leave GMSA. We want to be involved in
disaster relief at the same temperament, attitude, not
professional skill. And while talking about professional skill,
my teams can be highly qualified surgeon, but they have the
mentality to do the work of a primary health care specialist.
There is not I am the guy on the top. You look at the top, you
leave. You know this, it's about humility, being humble, committed
and spiritual. Spirituality is absolutely key, because we're
dealing with human life. Thank you so much for your time. Doctor
imtia Suleiman, always a pleasure to chat to you. Just after this
break ends, we'll be going into another session, and that will be
talking specifically about search and rescue and Morena. You'll
remember that that was quite an integral part of that mission that
you mentioned earlier on, the turkey earthquake, that was the
one that we're on in February, and that's where those skills really
came into play. And you'll hear here that it's not just about
those skills, it's also about the attitude of those that are that
are on these scenes. Most definitely, I think, fair to give
a shout out to Stellenbosch university, you know, for jumping
on board with the gift of the givers. Of course, as always,
shout out to the gift of the givers as well, for looking for
opportunities to enhance the organization in their efforts to
bring, you know, some kind of aid to not only South Africa, but the
world.