Imtiaz Sooliman – More aid for drought stricken communities

Welcome back. Gift of the givers is reaching out to more drought

stricken communities. The organization will this week be in

the Aberdeen community in the Eastern Cape. It's planning on

drilling boreholes at hospitals to assist struggling communities form

on this I'm joined by Dr MTR Suleiman from gift of the givers,

thanks for your time. So let's talk about this program that

you've basically gone on to help communities affected by droughts.

Is this an indication that government is not doing enough

well? It's it's an ongoing problem we've discussed as a government

man many times. Good evening, Sean and to the viewers. It's an

ongoing problem that we discussed for quite some time, what's the

government and the municipalities? The problem seems to be that, who

takes responsibility? Where is the ninth National Water Department?

What is probio? Where does the municipality? The municipality

themselves? You know, everyone you call have no funds, and you know

we have a very good relationship, all of them in Eastern Cape, and

they come back with the same story. They said, Look, we just

don't have the means to drill these balls. And those that did

drill balls, the costing was, what was enormous. Some money some of

them paid was quite ridiculous. And also, in many times, water did

not come out, come out from those balls. Here at the moment,

municipal water tankers are taking waters from the balls that we've

drilled, and in time, you already make a plan to pass our balls onto

them so the municipality can have better responsibility for the

balls. But yes, there seems to a serious issue in terms of vortex

responsibility. I will be with the water affairs minister next week,

Friday in Adelaide. We will be discussing the different issues

related to water in the Eastern Cape. But right now, we get calls

on a daily basis from hospitals, from schools, from communities

there's no water. We've drilled many, many more, and from next

week again, we're going to be drilling many more, but mostly in

hospitals. This time.

Talk to me about the desperation of people in these communities,

and whether you feel as gift of the givers that they've been

ignored and you're the only source of hope and help that these people

will have,

I would say they ignore. You know, the reality is that people have I

mean, the government has come to us. Different departments have

come first, and the communities have come first, directly, and the

same story, we don't have the budget on Wednesday. I mean, just

a few days before that, farmers from the Aberdeen area came to us.

They said, look, there's no more money left. All the overdraft is

maxed. Cards are mixed. We can't have we don't have any income

anymore. We're in serious trouble. Can you provide food parcels for

the farm workers, those that work for us and for us as farmers, as

for our families. We don't have any food, and we can't even come

to you to collect the food. We can't put fuel into our vehicles.

So can we come? Can you come to us? So on Wednesday, you know, we

took a truckload of food stuff and hygiene packs to the farmers in

Aberdeen, and they cater for the farm, the farm workers and the

farmers in the area. This is a direct request from them, you

know, directly from the farmers. And they came to see us in

crafting it, which is the closest region to them. So they itself.

There was huge desperation. Then came Thursday. First was now

government destination. In the week, we were getting calls from

CEOs of hospitals throughout the Eastern Cape saying, we are

totally desperate. We don't have a simple thing like adult diapers,

children diapers. We don't have London savers. We don't have PPE

for the hospital, for the doctors. We don't even have food to feed

our patients. Can you please help? And we made arrangements, you

know, and for them to come to us to save time. And on Thursday, 34

hospitals and 19 clinics came to collect to fall what I've just

mentioned. The good thing was that a st Cape government fully

endorsed it. And to show the appreciation, the premier sent us

a message to say, thank you very much. The Embassy for health can

directly herself to the distribution also spoke to all. In

fact, CEOs themselves came and they knew the embassy was coming.

Doctors came from hospital, and all used our our facility as a

means to discuss the problem. And it comes down to, again, there's

no budgets, but there's a huge need and huge desperation.

Actually, when you're calling us, the CEOs were crying on the phone.

That's how this distribution was.

Wow. It's so sad to hear that. And I understand government, of

course, saying they've run out of funds, but it basically points to

a failure of delivering services. Suleiman, when you decide who to

help, because I'm sure you get people from across the country

saying, we're struggling, we need assistance. How does that process

work for gift of the givers?

Well, let's do this two to three ways for that one is, you know,

who calls in first, which area is more affected than the others. And

in this case, most of the pods have been coming, please, okay,

and especially with the drought chicken issues and the farmers.

And thirdly, it depends on where the donors want to put their

money. For example, with the case that and several unrest, the

donors will say, okay, he has money. We want the food parcel. So

we want this set in the other.

But we wanted in this particular areas, especially where the

businesses are, where the companies are. So it's a balance

of, you know, where you have the leeway to do what you want in any

area. And also way of as prescription, where donors want

the stuff in a certain area. But then you come to some kind of

balance and say, Look, we can give you three quarters of what you

want, but quarter we need somewhere else. And also we would

tell them, look like your four other companies want the same

place. We can't put all the stuff in the same place. We need to

separate it and put some other areas. And that's what happens for

the Eastern Cape itself. We have been having the full discussion

what to do, and because we've been following up from 2019 since we've

been there, and we had a major intervention with covid 19 with a

drought. And we know where the board requires that, because over

the months, it's not like we got a call last week. The call has been

coming for some time now, and you know, and we say, Look, you on the

queue, and if one becomes available, we will put it in your

area of need. And what we're trying to do is whether, when you

put it in schools and hospitals, we then support the institution.

But also we put taps outside the gate, outside the fence, where the

people in the community won't impinge on the hospital or the

school, but still have access to the water. You were talking

specifically about water. We also put up a cultural gardens to

support food security, and that we doing mainly in schools. And of

course, hospital support is ongoing. It's been going on from

the beginning of covid. And we know the hospitals, because we

know every CEO individually, we've assisted nationwide 210 hospitals

in the country, and that's what PPEs, scrubs, pulse oximeters, you

know, non protect thermometers, visual angloscopes and a frost

from the solidarity fund, we put in 3000 CPAP machines, which are

oxygen oxygen delivery devices in hospitals, and these are life

saving, yeah, alright. Thank you so much for the good work you're

doing. Appreciate your time. Dr Imtiaz Suleiman from gift of the

givers.