Imtiaz Sooliman – KZN Floods Gift of the Givers’ on their work on the ground
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The Non Governmental Organization has been helping people with natural disaster, including providing aid to affected communities and finding and recovering family members. The loss of family members has caused destruction and lost of life, including Mananda andanda, and is causing flood damage and people to drown into homes. The community is involved in various projects, including providing water delivery and hot meals, making a mass movement of South African people to help them. The organization is making a personal impact and is making a mass movement of South African people to help them.
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The largest disaster response Non Governmental Organization. Gift of
the givers has been on the ground in KwaZulu Natal, providing
assistance to affected communities and providing aid. Let's get the
latest on the work that the organization has been doing in the
province. We're now joined via zoom by leader and founder, Dr
Emmett Suleiman. Always a pleasure to see you, sir. Thanks for
joining us here on sabc news.
Good afternoon. Thank you very much. So many, so many people have
faith in gift of the givers, and I'm sure you're very much aware of
that. Does it not add to some of the pressure you know that you
already as organization work under and where did you start when it
came to helping with the case that in blood?
Where did I start? Sorry, so my question is, many have faith in
your organization, in gift of the givers, as I'm sure you are away.
Is that not adding pressure to to the you know, the work that you're
already having to do? Does that not add pressure? And in my second
question is, where did you begin? When it comes to KZN as an
organization,
it doesn't add pressure flow. It's something that we've been doing
for a long time. Actually, it encourages us further, because it
shows over a period of 30 years, over a period of 30 years, people,
their support for us, has increased, and the fact that so
many people are supporting us is not actually adding pressure. It's
actually telling us that the people are satisfied with what we
doing, and that's why they're coming back to us. We we've given
it. We have a record of working in the country and outside the
country. We transfer transparent, we effective. And the advantage in
that, and even the huge support, has come, especially with the
current floods. When we moved on a Tuesday morning very quickly
into tongkat, where the first person space we went to that
person who passed on the granny with the three grandchildren she
had received a food parcel from us the week before. So when team
attachment to that place went to Tonga and helped all the
pensioners and the old people who are living, the friends where the
water raised one meter, what challenges would you say remain in
place at the moment, in providing assistance, and reaching out to
all the communities that need to be assisted. I mean, it's such a
very many people are needing assistance at this time, and one
wonders, you know where, where to even begin? Really
well, the challenge is just twofold. One is, the big challenge
right now is what you focus on is not about distributing anything.
It's about finding people.
People are distraught. They want to get their family members found
and buried, and that is proving a huge challenge, and the numbers
are not correct. Last week, you know, when we walked in the
different areas going to distributing items, and that
wasn't too bad, yet, some of the roads were closed that it takes
longer to get there. You do eventually get there, but it just
takes everything takes too long, but it's only a few places where
you can't get and we use helicopters to get to those
places. But whilst you're in the area, people are saying there's
two people missing under this building. Family members of mine
have disappeared. We haven't found the granny, we haven't found my
mother, we haven't found the uncle. And then one of my team
members was sitting on the it was was going to inland, and he saw
women sitting on the edge of the river, and he told them, but why
are you sitting here? It's dangerous. So they said, We are
hoping that the bodies of our family members will watch down and
we will catch them and we can bury them. Because at that point that
we realized this was far more serious than we knew that the
amount of people starting to miss it was becoming consistent. That
is too many, and that's when you put up search and recovery teams,
not rescue you can't rescue anybody. Now, similarly, at the
same time the other provinces put up the rescue teams too, or a
search teams. And then we said, where do we start? So we sent out
a message, and we said, Do you does anybody have a missing family
member? Or do you know of anybody that's missing? In a short space
of time, we started getting full descriptions, three children here,
five family members there, six family members there, three year
three there. By this morning, when I tallied up all that messages,
there's 237
people missing, and I think there's many more that we haven't
had feedback from. And then we went to the areas and trying to
assist. What all the teams is not only give for the givers, it's
everybody together trying to find and recover bodies. There's two
big problems. One is lots of bodies, and advanced stage of
decomposition, you can't identify them. And secondly, to get to them
is a big problem, because there's a lot of mud and a lot of rubble,
and the the big equipment can, can't get in. So that's proving to
be a huge challenge. And now, the sun coming out like it is today,
and it stays hot like this, we're going to get many more bodies
decomposed very, very fast. Uh, you know, some.
Some areas are more affected than others. And I'm just interested to
know, you know, where gift of the givers is concentrating most of
its work. Where have you seen that you really are needed? I mean, you
know, obviously it's devastation, and really, many parts of KZN are
affected, but where have you really seen the terrible word to
use? But where have you seen the hot spots? As to where you need to
be?
The hot spots are three. Well, you need to be everywhere, because
there's people scattered everywhere. But the biggest
destruction and the biggest loss of life is in inanda mulveni and
doesn't hook in Pine town. Those three areas seem to have the
biggest loss of life, the area that we haven't been to yet to
scout properly, we just sent photo. Helicopter was through the
an area in the valley of 1000 hills, but speaking to some people
who inside there, said it was horrendous. The big boulders
started moving down the mountain and smashed into people's homes,
and then smashed the homes into the water, and people drowned like
that. And earlier in the week, last week, they managed to take to
take some of the bodies home, and they managed to take some of the
injured people to hospital. But they said there's quite a few
people missing the area, and they said the destruction is quite
severe. We're hoping to get in now, because one of the roads has
opened up, but the person who called me yesterday, who initially
told me about it, he said, Look, the destruction is severe here,
and for six days from Monday night from Sunday, those people didn't
receive any assistance because we couldn't get in. There was no
roads. So that's an area that has been badly affected, and we send
the helicopter or supplies to that area. But from the pictures and
from the feedback in Nana, which leads to mulveni, which leads to
this area in 1000 value or 1000 years, they very, very badly
affected. And even doesn't hook but wide bank and parts of point
out the other areas, yes, there's flood damage in comes into in Port
chipston, central Dublin, party road has been badly hit. Informal
settlement there, reservoir Hill look like it has hit by an
earthquake, you know. But there's, fortunately, not lots of, not
many, lots of lives there. There's a child missing and an elderly man
missing in Anne road. Two people are missing there, other than
that, in in the other big challenge, of course, is the
absence of water. There's not enough water. We're getting calls
from hospitals. They can't watch the patients, they can't feed the
patients, they can't give them medication, and more and more
calls are coming from hospitals. They can't use the toilets. It's
becoming a hygiene and an infectious problem, and we're
trying to deliver water to the hospitals. Then the community is
called to say we don't have water. So it's becoming a challenge to be
in so many places at the same time, but you can't use big
trucks, so it takes longer because they get stuck in the road, and
you're spending more time actually, we be in and out of
traffic. They're actually doing distribution. So those are all the
challenges. It does get done, but just everything takes longer.
Yeah, and, and, I mean, a lot of the focus is, you know, in KZN,
but you know, the reality, of course, is that other provinces
have also experienced flooding, and there's been loss of live
lives there as well. How are you reaching out to those areas? And
you know, and you know you're talking about, you know, some of
the things that are requested from you, those things require money.
And I wonder, if you're getting, you know, enough assistance,
enough donations, and how people who are willing and wanting to, in
fact, help gift of the givers Can, can indeed do so.
We're involved in Eastern Cape also. We got called a few days ago
when the flood said, there in Port Edward, you know, we were called.
Then we were there early in the morning. MSC was there. Kalani
Mata was there in the morning with us. And, you know, we assisted the
people in the in the Eastern Cape. So far, we've got one big part of
our drowning. Also, that same system, we got one message, one
person is missing, and we've been involved there. And at the same
time, we've been involved with the fires in Langa also, there's three
areas we've been involved. We have reserves, you know, we we stock up
on supplies for a long period of time. But the public has been
absolutely generous. I must say, the South African public has made
this very, very personal. Every province has made this a personal
issue. South Africans and kzn anitas, they're not KZN. They all
of South Africa, you know, it is not regarded as a separate
province. You can see the love that's coming through from
throughout the country, people wanting to do something. The
corporates have come forward. In fact, on Monday night, when the
rain came, the first calls we got were not from people needing help,
help. It was from corporate saying, What can we do to help?
And they've been excellent in coming forward. We're busy with
agreements with them, but on the radio, on your television
channels, your radio programs. People throughout South Africa,
everybody is driving the campaign. Everybody wants to do something.
Even small organizations in the areas where people have been
affected, they've come forward. They've been very, very good,
providing hot meals. Volunteers have been coming. People have been
bringing in. It's just a mass movement of South Africans showing
the spread of Ubuntu to help fellow South African Alright,
Doctor. Mija Suleman, thanks very much for talking to us, and
certainly good luck with the work that you're doing. And I'm sure
you can get back on the road. I know we disturbed your work for a
moment there, and thanks indeed for giving us that conversation.