Imtiaz Sooliman – Interview GlowTV
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Music.
Welcome South Africa. We are joined by the chairman and founder
of gift of the givers, Dr imtia Suleman, in a very exclusive
interview. My name is Denver Naika, and this is the Get Real
show. Hi. This is Dr njera Suleiman, Chairman and Founder of
gift for the givers you're watching me on the Get Real show
on glow TV with Denver Naika.
Hi, Dr India. Suleiman, welcome to the Get Real show. Hi Denver.
Thank you very much for having me on grow TV. And hello to your
viewers. Wow. I think they're so excited. I'm so excited myself. I
mean, we've waited such a long time to speak to you. You're such
a great man. I mean, you've been associated with legends in South
Africa and across the world, but let's get to know you're the
doctor by profession. How did this actually start? I mean giving back
to the community so wholeheartedly. It's not something
that I initiated, it's not something that I thought about.
And the viewers have to understand this is something very spiritual,
and spirituality is the essence of life. And a lot of people need to
understand that I met a spiritual teacher in Turkey in Istanbul in
91
I went back in 92 because I fell in love with this man. And what I
saw on the sixth of August 1992 on a Thursday night, the man spoke in
FLUENT Turkish. She made eye contact with me, and made eye
contact heavenwards and in FLUENT Turkish. And I don't understand a
word of Turkish, but I understood every single word that he said in
Turkish. And he said, My son, I'm not asking you, I'm instructing
you to form an organization. The name in Arabic will be wagful
wakifeen translated it means gift of the givers. It will serve all
people of all races, all religions, all colors, all
classes, all cultures, of any geographical location and of any
political affiliation, but you will serve them unconditionally.
This is an instruction for the rest of your life. Remember, and
it's very important, from a spiritual point of view, that
whatever you do is done through you and not by you. And started
off on that night, and it's going to be 30 years on the sixth of
August this year. But doctor, I mean, let's, let's go back a
little bit into this whole transition that has happened. I
mean, you've had a spiritual leader that had come up to you,
given you this insight as to what your life was going to look like
in the next couple of years. What ran through your mind you being a
doctor who has a professional field, also giving back to the
community. I mean, what emotions ran through you? Well, when I saw
the teacher the first time in 91 I realized that I wanted to be part
of this. It was a spiritual order in Turkey, and I don't know
whatever he said was something important. So when he gave the
instruction at that point, I didn't understand the magnitude of
the instruction, because at some point I asked him, I said, you
know, you gave me this instruction. What do you actually
mean? And what am I supposed to do? Because I'm a doctor in
private practice. I have three surgeries in a place called Peter
marisburg in South Africa. So what exactly do you want me to do? And
he told me one line you will know,
and in 30 years, I do know what to do. And he told me over various
visits that it will get bigger, that people from all over the
world will come to you, that you will you will reach out to many
more places, and you'll do a lot of things that you don't
understand now. And he said a lot of things that I'm telling you
will only become clearer to you later in your life. And that's
exactly what's happening even now, 30 years later, it's unfolding,
and I made up my mind, okay, it was directed to me. The moment I
walked out of that place, I got a sort of inspiration respond to the
civil war in Bosnia. And the same month, I took in 32 containers of
aid into Bosnia. In November, I took in another eight containers
of aid in 93 we started building a containerized mobile hospital.
So. And as those things were happening, it came to me that
disaster was going to be our main intervention, our main focus of
the organization. And then, as I said, You will know, people came
to with this. Then I set up an office. People came and said, You
know what, my Chinese bursary. So we brought in a bursary project.
Somebody said, You know what, we need support for the soup kitchen.
So we support the soup kitchens, and then we set up our own. And
then people said, you know, there's people that's hungry at
home, they need food parcels, and somebody needs a wheelchair, and
someone needs a medical intervention, and somebody needs
water, so over a period of time, and people said, We need
counseling. You know, we don't know what to do, and we need
support groups, and we need assistance to help our kids grow
up. And school said we want stationary, and they want sports
bills and they want computer labs, so like that. Every time I didn't
initiate it, it came to me, as the teacher said, You will know. So
whatever I needed to do came to me like in in 2013
my friend calls me from Yemen and says, a South African couple is
taken hostage, and we got involved in hostage negotiations and taking
people out to take a hostage. So it's put in front of you. It's not
something you plan on to do. There is no planning. In 30 years,
there's been no planning. It just happens. And it's very difficult
to explain, but things come to you, people come to you, requests
come to you, and you just know, okay, I'm just do this. People
start saying, we need four different animals. So you provide
food for animals. Then they said, there's no water needed bones.
Then we put up housing. It's all different kind of things that we
do, but it's brought to us, doctor again, do you choose the type of
communities that you get involved with, the type of diversities that
you you your involvement is with no Patricia was very it's emphatic
you said. Use the Arabic word NAS, Nas in Quran means mankind in the
holy book, and said mankind means everybody, unconditionally, no
question of race, religion, color, class, whether they believe or
don't believe, is not your business. Your business to help
human beings and creation whatever difficulty they have in the best
way possible, unconditionally, not expecting anything in return. So
that's what we do. No, we just have wherever we can. It doesn't
really make any difference to us. We don't actually said you don't
expect any thanks. You do it unconditionally. You don't ask for
anything. You give it in a very dignified way, and you leave, and
that's how we do it, and doctor what about the funding? I mean,
this is, this is quite an expensive project, because you're
not giving one or two, you're giving out in the millions,
sometimes in the billions, throughout South Africa. And
again, you've ventured out into many other countries. I mean, you
were, you're well known throughout the world. I would say, as a
policy, we don't have fundraisers. We don't have any staff who to
collect money. Okay, that's our policy, because the spiritual
teacher said, You will never look for money. And believe me, Denver
actually, when the UCT phi happened, we actually had to tell
people, please don't send any more money. Don't sell any more goods.
We have enough. So people come to us, they look for us, they find
us. We announce what we're doing, and the queues just get long that
people want to donate to us. I'm going to put you in a spot now. I
mean, you've been giving back and giving back and giving back and
not expecting anything in return. You're now being acknowledged
profoundly in South Africa, and everyone is talking about you.
You're seeing your name in the newspapers, you're on the news,
you're everywhere. How does it make you feel to know you know
what? And again, this is a get reassure. So we get a little bit
realistic at certain times. I mean, how does it make you feel to
know you know what? I'm giving back, and a little bit of
acknowledgement is coming my way. Is it something you feel or you
feel like you know what? No, I'm this is not for me. I'm not
expecting anything in return. No, from a good point of you, you
appreciate the acknowledgement.
Appreciating that, or getting the acknowledgement, is also a
reflection of what people think of my teams, because people also say
that those teams don't expect any acknowledgement. They work Monday
to Sunday. They work in public holidays. They work money to a
night during the covid. They took the risk during the unrest. They
went into the areas the KZN floods, all the difficulty they've
been in the different areas now. What the water situation in the
Eastern Cape, in Nelson, Mandela Bay, the teams are working. They
expect that in return, they put their heads down and they move. So
to me, when an acknowledgment comes, I always pass it on to the
teams and say, this is because of you. They're recognizing what you
do. Because I, as a person, can't do all this. I come in other
places at the same time. And also it comes back to the same message,
the most important message of having no ego. The teacher said
that whatever you do is done through you and not by you. And he
said the day, you forget that the gift is gone so and you understand
that the kind of things that you do, it's just not humanly
possible. It's the speed at which speed at which it happens, how
people come across, how everything is put you know, there's a higher
hand working. So actual fact that acknowledgement is an
acknowledgement of a higher hand behind you. And you need to
understand that, Doctor, I can see you very religious, and I'm sure
our viewers are gaging that all at the same time. We'll be back after
this. Do.
Welcome back. If you've just joined us, we are in a very, very
exclusive interview with one of the most renowned individuals in
South Africa and throughout the world. Dr India. Suleman, Doctor,
you know, we were chatting about your organization. How does the
funding works? Because we, everyone knows you give out in the
millions, and you yourself are not working for an establishment. You
are a doctor by profession, but we realize that that sort of a
something that you've put to rest. So how does an individual like
yourself personally survive in this, in this place that we call
that we need to live in?
We hide this several ways. One is, everybody in organization gets
paid, including me. No, there's companies come forward and as they
give you money for administration, specifically for administration,
yeah, that's a form of income. Secondly, in my private practice,
I had never any accounts. I bought my house, I bought cars,
everything in those days, and set it up. Yeah. Then I was involved
in a nutrition company, and I was a consultant to many people, and
that brought in money. And then, of course, we had different type
of investments, but currently it's a minimum type of, like honorarium
for the kind of work that I do, and because I was not too
interested in money, I My house is paid off. My cars are paid off.
Everything was paid off. And part of the organization, it's a
standard facility for all the staff in organization that we
have. So, you know, there's a payment through there, but
corporate companies fund that part specifically. And in terms of
organization itself, we don't look for money, as I mentioned. We
don't have fundraisers. We just make an announcement and we won't
believe it. You know, even before we make an announcement, money can
just comes, comes in. I was studying what an a consul general
of a big country recently, and the person called me, and she said, I
want to ask you a question. She said, I went to the government,
the provincial government in KZN, to offer them the services of our
country, to give them money. And the government officials told me,
told the lady, give the money to gift of the givers. So she said, I
can't understand that. The government official said, give you
the money. And I said, the whole of South Africa says give you the
money. And I said, Yes, that's the sentiment for years now, because
we're transparent, the media travels with us. They so we give
there's no religious issues. It's purely a humanitarian, you know.
And more and more companies are coming, and the only reason they
give us money is all our paperwork is correct. They see the balance
sheets. They see down to the statements. And after the second
and third time, they don't even ask for that anymore. They just
come in and they multiply the amount of money that they give us.
I said, even SARS donates to us, the order the general donates to
us, the Reserve Bank passes our application to send money out of
the countries 30 years now, there is no issue auditing companies
donate to us. The big companies donate to us, and they have the
due diligence now, we got American organizations and American
companies and European companies and British companies all go
through the due diligence test, and after doing the first time,
they never worry us the second time, it's a very right now we
believe what Gates Foundation, they look in us. We busy with the
fourth Foundation, Caf in America, Walmart, Anglo American implants,
Genco,
Exxon, Exxon. There's so many all the big banks all come to us. And
actually it's been a very honorable position, or a very
fortunate position, where we actually tell the corporates when
we can talk to them. They don't tell us when you know you will
listen in the cure and we will get to you when you can. We have to
tell them when we can get to them. That's the amount of interest
people have in us. Ambassadors from different countries have come
to us to talk to us, Sweden, Canadian, American Consul General,
Turkish
Australian. All come to talk to us from different countries.
Everybody wants our view on the country itself. And what we're
doing all the big finance houses, the big banks, call us to address
their company staff. And I've done 60
presentations this year already. I've got another 45 confirmed for
the rest of the year. And it keeps growing. Where people call you to
present to big corporate companies because they believe in what you
do and what you say, Wow, that's that's like goosebumps moments.
Let's talk about, I mean, you, you gave back during the hundreds. You
gave back. I mean, that was, again, I think we literally a year
into it, we're looking at now. In July, we had the flooding
recently, you were part of it. There's so much that you've been a
part of it. I mean, again, how do you involve yourself in all these
initiatives? And you are the first that's, I'm there. I'm going to
sort this
out before they give us. As I said, are, you know, after we did
the response to Bosnia, it was clear we were going to be a
disaster response agency. And over 30 year period, we've developed
ourselves. You know, in one of the world's best week, for example,
you take cyclone Idai, the cyclone hit Mozambique, Malawi and
Zimbabwe at the same time, and at that point, there were floods in
Tamil.
So we had teams in all those countries simultaneously. When we
started off, we were very small. We could do come a few projects a
year, a million Rand a year. 3 million ran a year, and that is
gone in hundreds of millions per year. So although we don't have
that much of a staff compliment, we only have 90 full time. We
don't have any volunteers. Our staff are all full time because we
need them to be on site. It's a disaster. We can't wait for people
to come. They must know the system. So we've got 90 full time
staff in South Africa. We have 400 worldwide, but of which 320 run a
hospital in Syria, it's all medical teams, you know. And we
have offices in other parts of the world. So we've specialized in
disaster management and all the projects that we do. And we also
have a team that does hydrology, that does drilling, that does
building, that does construction. You know, we have different types
of people that we contract to. They become part of us, and we
just subcontract it. And we know exactly what we want. We want
quality work. We don't compromise on quality. We want world class
service and world kind things that we do, like how we want to be for
ourselves if we have that kind of money. So, you know, it's very
specialized, and we've grown over the years, and we know the system
and my staff are trained. They can do a disaster in their sleep. They
know everyone knows exactly what to do. The only volunteers we have
are the search and rescue teams and the medical teams that come
out because they work normally in the hospital or in a surgery or
wherever. But when a disaster come, the calls come within
minutes. We ready, because they have surgeries. We're leaving
hospital. We're taking leave. We're ready where you want us to
go. Wow. I think we've answered all the questions. But tell me,
how does your family manage with you when they step out in public?
I mean, everyone knows you. I know we here, and everyone wants to get
a pic with you, including myself. I've been I've been admiring you
literally my entire life with what you do and give back. I mean, how
do you manage as an individual when you step out in public. It's
getting more and more difficult, but each with each day, you know
now, when I do an event, if I say I speak for 40 minutes, I have to
allow one hour for pictures after that. And sometimes it's not a
group picture. Everybody wants a individual picture. Yeah, then
they want to salvage while treating the restaurant, the guy
will come and just tell like you take a picture while they're
sitting and eating. You walk in the street. They stop you.
Everything takes 10 times longer to do, but it's love, okay? It's
love. It's a creation. People love what you do, and you can't stop
them from doing that. You know, I won't stop anybody. I mean, a
state sweeper comes and says, I want the picture. A catalyst
tenant comes and says, I want the picture. It's indicative of they
love the work that you do, which, of course, is God's work being
done to us. So I wouldn't stop anybody. I would allow every
single person to take the picture where I go, and some people are
respectful. They say, Okay, we're just waiting for you to eat, but
after you, we're catching you.
Mr. Cinema, thank you so much. I'm going to get my picture with you.
Thank you so much for being with us here on glow TV, on the Get
Real show. It's been absolutely amazing. Thank you for blessing
our show with your presence. We'd love you to give a small
motivation to our glow TV viewers that love you and admire you
throughout South Africa. I think the most important message right
now is a lot of people are feeling despondent. They want it about the
unrest. They want it about the state of the country. They're
losing hope. There's absolutely no need to lose any hope. I've
traveled to war zones, to different parts of the world. This
is the greatest country on Earth. It has fantastic people. All the
challenges we have are not insurmountable. Standing together,
we will fix it, but each one of us has to do our but it's about
active citizenry and all teaching, all religion. There's one simple
philosophy, whoever does an atom's weight of good, one shall see it.
Don't do millions of randoms of stuff. Just do a simple atom's
weight of good. Start off with your own families, your parents,
your children, your neighbors, the extended community. Do it without
anybody having to know. Do it quietly in a very dignified way.
Teachers, already tired, we need you back to come help us keep
those kids who are suffering with teachers, learning forms, doctors.
We need your help with hospitals. People with skills. This country
needs a lot of skills. Everybody has got skills and experience.
Give some time back at no cost, and together, as we upskill other
people and support each other, what open heart we will rebuild
this country to a great glory.
Thank you so much, doctor, and we definitely will be catching up
with you soon. And thank you again for sitting with us on the gator
show. Thank you so much. You.