Imtiaz Sooliman – Humanitarians meet to share critical skills

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.