Imtiaz Sooliman – Mandela Day I Gift Of The Givers donates basics towards those affected looting
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The speakers discuss the impact of the current COVID-19 crisis on the demand for food parcels, as many people are calling in to obtain them. They acknowledge the need for action to ensure everyone is in a good situation and reach all who need it. The KZN economy is facing challenges, including the huge need for food parcels to keep up with people in need, and they are working with organizations to provide a full food parcel for a family of five. The speakers emphasize their support and their goal of providing a full food parcel for a family of five.
AI: Summary ©
From water provision, disaster response, hunger alleviation,
education, health care and social upliftment, they kick started
their day in giving basic staple items such as bread and milk to
homes in various communities. For more on this, we're joined by
Doctor MTS Suliman, who's the founder of gift of the givers, a
very good evening to you. Imtiaz, thanks for joining us this
evening. Let's just first start with
your relief efforts on this particular day. Have they been
complicated in any way? And I ask this because we understood for
some reports suggesting that one of your warehouses was looted. Is
this true?
Good evening to you. No, it's that's not true. It was a
warehouse that was used by us previously, one of the business
volunteer in Port Chester on the south coast, used to assist us.
And every time there was a problem in the community, he would ask for
food parcels or any kind of support, and then we would send it
to him, and he would store it in the in that warehouse, which is
his own warehouse, and distribute it within the next day or two.
Unfortunately, in January himself, his brother and his father also
succumbed to covid 19. So as a result, we didn't have that
volunteer anymore, and that facility was not being used by us.
But because our signage was inside there, people assumed it was a
warehouse of ours that was looted. Yes, the warehouse was looted and
it was burned, but, you know, we had no supplies in there anymore,
and it was not our warehouse. Okay, alright, so Doctor Suman
then tell us a little bit more about the impact of the current
looting crisis in South Africa, how that's going to have an impact
on demand experience by gift of the givers. And
the demand is huge. You know, somebody put a a false message
yesterday to say we were giving out free food parcels today,
without exaggeration. And we must have, I had my phone must have
taken over 3000 calls. They were just ringing all the time. You
couldn't answer the phone, and there was almost 2000
ah, SMS messages for people saying they need food parcels. Yes, some
people may be taking a chance, but overall, you can see there's a
huge need. The need was there even before you know the crisis
happened. The need was there before covid 19. It was there
during covid 19. It was there before the current situation. And
it's there during the kind of situation. And you can see that
the type of cause that come come from all strata of society, not
only the very poor, it's a middle class, slightly higher class,
who've lost their jobs, have had difficulty. A lot of calls from
institutions all age, homes, often it just home for the you know,
abused women, many facilities like that. And just people are saying
to my neighbors, haven't eaten for a few days. So the demand is is
added. It's the situation itself, the economic situation before the
situation and the covid 19. So there's a huge requirement for
food parcels and food generally in KZN, but in other parts of the
country, typically, how does the foundation respond to these calls,
and how do people get hold of you? Is it a simple case of anybody who
feels they need you, or is it actual process to follow?
Well, everybody does call us as individuals, you know, as people,
as institutions, but we don't operate like that. We don't work
on individuals. We work what communities and we work the only
place we work like for it's an institution itself, where there's
a group of people in there, and otherwise. Other than that, if
people call us from different areas, say somebody calls me from
a home and say, I got I need something at home. I said, we
don't operate like that. You need to I need a call from the
community organization or somebody that's controlling the area to
give us proper feedback. We need to get it. We need to check that's
really the situation. If people really need the help, because the
calls are coming from far, from far and wide. It's not like from
one area, like, for example, if you have a flood disaster or a
fire disaster, it's restricted to one small area. But now is the
entire KZN. I mean, two days ago, Minister of Agriculture to this
economy called me and she said they are worried. There's 29 areas
on the north coast. They don't have a single shop. There's no
shop to buy items from. What are the people going to do? Because
that kind of challenges that you have, in addition to the
challenges from the different communities, people calling all
the time. So what we do is, when we get the calls, we tell the
people, alright, which area are you operating from? They will tell
us the areas, and we say, How many people in that area? They will
say, this amount of people need food parcels. We will send in our
team, some scouts, area checks, get some kind of feedback. Of
course, we can't be 100% it's impossible to know the situation
of every person in every house, but you get a fair idea. And you
know, if you hit a 90% success rate, it's fantastic. You may lose
five or 10% but it doesn't really matter. People are in a difficult
situation right now. So we try to get and we grew up with credible
people, credible people, credible organizations. We have a track
record. And of course, the other thing is that we've had a
relationship with many, many organizations that we dealt with.
So that makes it a little easier. And then we pack the stuff, take
it ourselves, make sure to distribute ourselves in
partnership with the people who have called us. What are
expectations of where to for.
Here, because I'd imagine you'd also need your own donors to be
able to keep up with your operations, outreach programs. Do
you have any fears around drying up of supply there, and would you
be able to get to people on time for your part, that which you're
doing? We know that there's a national effort through
government. But do you think you have enough to be able to reach
all who are in need?
Look for in terms of things drying out that wouldn't happen. You
know, we got an overwhelming support from the public and from
corporates and institutions, organizations, people setting up
all types of coalition drives. We even got calls from overseas, from
South Africans based outside the country, from several countries.
All call, all wanting to have every single hour the summit were
to set up some kind of campaign to assist us. So the support is, is,
is incredible. What's the difficult part is, the need is too
huge. There's just too many people who need assistance. And it's not
some small food bank that you're giving. We're trying to give a
full we're not we try. We are doing it right now. We're giving a
full food parcel that will last a family of five for a whole month.
So they don't need to go to a shop now, because in Australia nine
eight days, there's no shop. What do they do after three or four
days, when the food is finished? So we need to build time for some
new structures to be set up and take people what I call off the
grid. So that's what we're trying to do. But of course, food parcels
are expensive. This transport, purchasing items and getting
distributed. We have a standard policy. We can only do as much as
we can do, so as much as we can do, we will do and try to help as
best we can, for individual food parcels, for the family in
supporting institutions. And of course, we've been supporting
hospitals, also healthcare workers, paramedics, frontline
workers, because we're saying that you guys cannot stand in a queue
right now. There's been a shortage of manpower at hospitals because
of fuel shortage. Workers can't healthcare workers can't get
hospital because of security. They can't get to hospital. There's
sometimes two nurses in a ward of a whole lot of patients. So we've
been providing food packages for hospitals too. So we try to cover
a wide spectrum. But to answer your question, support is good,
but any extra support will be helpful. The more support we get,
the more people we can help. Thank you so much for speaking to us
all. The best to you. Dr Imtiaz Suleiman, who is founder of a gift
of the givers, let's take.