Imtiaz Sooliman – SAs example of heroic humanitarian aid came when Ukraine called Gift of the Givers’ Dr Sooliman
AI: Summary ©
A representative from a gift company discusses their success in various fields, including helping Ukraine with natural disasters, helping people affected by natural disasters, and finding local businesses. They also mention their involvement in various regions and partnerships with various organizations. The health department is involved in various disaster intervention projects, including helping people on social media, and the COVID-19 crisis has exposed hunger in South Africa. The health department is supporting people on social media pages and the COVID-19 crisis has exposed hunger in South Africa.
AI: Summary ©
Doctor inta Suleiman from gift of the givers in the business virtual
studio to discuss the money they've been raising for to help
Ukraine. Doctor Suleiman is normally involved in raising money
for various schools in South Africa, for hungry people, for
hospitals. So this is a field that is very well known for but is
Doctor, is Ukraine? Is that something new, helping them
overseas, people like war refugees? No, it's nothing new.
We've actually helped Europe three times previously. We were first
involved in Bosnia in 1992 after 95 in 1999 we're involved in
Albania and helping. You know the case, there were the Kosovo, and
then a few years later, there was big floods in Madera island in
Portugal. And we assisted the island in Portugal with floods. We
sent in a team, we sent in boats, we sent in supplies, and we helped
the people. It was 2000 something, very many years ago. Besides that,
we were involved in earthquake in Haiti, the earthquake in Nepal,
the war, the typhoon in the Philippines, there's a South
African with a Ukrainian wife that asked for your
Yes. He called. He just said, he knows we're involved in this kind
of situations. Can and he can help us, you know, or can we help them?
So on the fifth of March, I phoned him. I said, Yes. His wife says,
Natalia. I said, Tell Natalia, we will get involved in Ukraine. She
needs to find any shop in the area. We want to support Ukrainian
from inside, not from outside. When I say from here, not from
outside, I mean, let's buy stuff inside Ukraine to support the
local businesses. She found a shop that same day. She's in a place
called Ivano Frankish and from there's a small town called
Galina. So she found some stuff, and they started purchasing. We
started grinding them. What to do the next day is they started
looking for bigger shops, and then they spoke to the mayor and spoke
to business people, and started finding warehouses where they were
surplus goods. And so we started purchasing inside. We started
selling money on a daily basis from South Africa through the
husband, through to Natalia. Then she got a group of friends, and
they said, whilst they were the area, people from the east started
coming in. There were orphans, there were old people, people
wanting simple things, bottled water, food, sanitary pads,
diapers and warm clothes, because it was freezing in the area and in
the east, of course, the gas, electricity, everything was cut.
So people were freezing. She started arranging them. And as you
started doing that, we said, what you doing in Ivano frankis, can we
find somebody else like you in another place? And what? In short
hours? She said, Yes, I got Alexi and Kyiv. I've got khasni and
Kharkiv, you know, and solid, and I got stars in slavotic. So I
said, Okay, whatever you're doing, they must do the same thing. Buy
the stuff, deliver and, you know, and get it to the people. Alexei,
he had an additional responsibility. People said,
There's dog compounds here. There's two dog compounds here,
and the dog's got no dog food, so we arrange for dog food for the
two compounds to feed animals. Then he said he got individual
people coming to him needing medicine. So whatever chemistry
could find, he started buying individual medicines per person,
and they started delivering medicine to the people. Then all,
then all of them, Natalia, Alexei casino, and started making
arrangements to get a warehouse when I say, we are building a huge
building, a small room where they store supplies. They use their own
cars, and they started putting stuff and supplying then I told
them, besides the individual medicines and the food for
individual people that come to you, you need to go to the
people's houses, because all people and people are physically
challenged. Could not travel with their family members who are to
travel internally, or we left the country. So these people were left
in your homes. Yeah, and they are stranded. So our team started
doing door to door deliveries, both of medical supplies and food
and sanitary pads and diapers, whatever was required, and the
warm clothes. And as that was happening, the word started
spreading. The gift of the givers is involved in Ukraine. We then
got a call from an organization called Smart angels. They said,
Look, we're getting stuff coming from Europe. But there's two
problems. One is, sometimes there's no fuel. There's no money
to pay for the fuel for the truck coming from Europe. And when it
comes to Ukrainian water, we got 17 vehicles. We got minibusses and
other all types of vehicles. We have 70 we can't put fuel in them
to deliver the aid to different parts of the country. So I said,
Okay, I'll fund you with 20,000 liters of fuel immediately. So I
said, you've got the suppliers. It's a waste. You got the
supplies, but no money to move it. So we partnered them and we
started funding their vehicles. I made money available for 20,000
liters of fuel. And I said, I'll expand it as we go along. So with
that, we increase the network and the reach. And what happened in
every area they went to, the young people are starting to stand up.
So more and more people are putting their hands up and saying,
We want to volunteer. We want to volunteer. So when stuff comes
from angels, yes, people.
Take responsibility and start delivering to the people
immediately. So it doesn't wait in warehouses. It's instant delivery
and other process. What we started off with the four volunteers. Now
we in, we in my G in nicolife. We've got other areas. People
started coming in, and we're trying very hard to get someone in
Mariupol. We're hoping that in the next three falls we have somebody
inside there. So all the hotspots areas were trying to get in. Then
often it just came. They said, look, the kids are here. They need
some blankets, some warm clothes. They need some mattresses. They
need some
bottled water. Can you arrange? They found a factory that produces
mattresses and blankets. And I must compliment Ukrainian people,
in what situation business people normally double and triple prices.
Here. People are dropping their prices on giving us 50, 65% 80%
discount. So it's been incredible. We generally found potatoes on a
farm. We bought of 27 tons of potatoes and smart angels that
have a good place where they keep it, and they start supplying to
all the different areas. So it's a very good combination of my people
that I've got inside Ukraine, working with smart angels who have
the warehouse both in Poland and inside Ukraine, and they take it
to warehouses that we set up on our teams, and then our
volunteers, and their volunteers expand the network. 72 hours ago,
another organization called us. They said, We are Ukraine,
Romania. We Ukrainian based, but at the moment we're operating from
Romania. So smart interest is relevant from the west of the
country, and this other organization is delivering from
the south of the country, which means we have a bigger reach. And
I said, What's your needs? They said, We want you to do the same
thing for us that you're doing for smart angels. Can you give us
fuel? I said, No problem. I'll fund you for fuel. So now we have
delivery from the west and the south, and the network has just
expanded exponentially, and we're getting to more and more people
inside Ukraine.
Well, it sounds incredible. What you discover, what you described
of how the people in Ukraine, you know, just started jumping in our
countries from outside, and this just snowballed. What was the
support like from South Africa? Where did you raise the money
from? We don't wait to raise money, because we disaster for 30
years. Virtually, we take money out of our reserves, and then we
just, we just announce it to the public, whoever wants to send as a
policy. We don't have fundraisers. We don't phone people for money.
Okay? We just do what we have to do, and people start sending
money. And, you know, and now there's some international
interest. Some people from USA called yesterday, somebody else
called from USA Today, and we're hoping that as the message that we
give you to our other people will go out, and people from all over
the world will support us. So, yes, some money has been raised
from South Africa, but we didn't wait for that money. Well, the
South Africans know what gift of the givers do in South Africa, for
people who might not know what gift of the givers is. And you
know what are you? Are you a South African organization? You clearly
operate far wider than this. Can you just give us sort of a picture
of of what gift of the givers is to have all of the all of mankind,
irrespective of race, religion, color, class, culture,
geographical location, political affiliation, have everyone can
help them unconditionally and expect nothing return. And we
started that process. Ukraine is the 45th country we've helped in
our history in South African money. We've delivered 4 billion
of eight to people, to millions of people in all these countries,
including South Africa. Disaster intervention is our specialty. We
probably the most complete disaster organization in the
world, because some people do primary health care, some people
do trauma intervention, some people do post op rehab, some
people do trauma counselors. Some people do such a rescue. Some
people bring dogs. Some people put hospitals. Some people bring
potential blankets, medicines. Some people may help with
agriculture in a war situation or a food in the situation. We do all
of the above, every single aspect. We hire planes, we send our own
teams in. We got specialized equipment. We've intervened in
many disasters. And as I said, Ukraine is a 45th country. We've
assisted, besides disaster intervention in the covid 19 in
South Africa, we were very big. We were the biggest. We were involved
in supporting 210 hospitals. We visible hospital infrastructure,
plates. We've drilled 420 bones in the last 24 months in areas of
drought in South Africa, we support farmers with fodder for
the animals to try to save the sheep and the cattle we've been
involved in, but beer rehabilitation we provide. We
provided 600,000 food parcels during the unrest in care in
Durban and the covid, 19 job losses and hunger, more than
600,000 food parcels. We supported over 100 soup kitchens. We
involved with winter warm for blankets for new clothing. We give
out wheelchairs. We support schools like infrastructure. We
put balls in the communities. We put balls in hospitals. We're now
busy with catch up surgery. You know, we just put, put up 5
million there to start catch up surgery in front of school
hospital. We bring cataract catch up in Easter River and.
Now intervening shad makaki hospital that was closed from
April last year with a fire, and the project is going to cost us 35
million and we now intervening to start fixing parts of the
hospital. You know, this is some of the involvement sports
development we do. We involve in hostage negotiation. We religious
people from from taking hostage in Africa and in Yemen, we got the
British also. So we just do a lot of things.
No, that, I just want to say that's such an impressive list of
things you said. I just saw this week reports of malnutrition and
children dying in the Eastern Cape. Um, you've been very active
in the covid period of helping when there was actually hunger in
South Africa. How is that progressing? Have you heard of the
case in the Eastern Cape? The cases we were involved in that we
involved in that, you know, they had one response. And last week,
when I was Eastern Cape, what has any trouble yourself? Then you
wanted a 912, night, no of other and we've been supporting Eastern
Cape and lots of food parcels. What our boreholes? We've been
putting gardens, agricultural gardens, agricultural gardens, in
the schools and in the community to make themselves sufficient. But
we've got fortified foods, which we're going to roll out, you know,
1000s of packs to the different hospitals where the millionaire
kids will get fortified, nutritionally enriched products
from us. That's beside the food parcels that we're giving to the
parents. But to be honest, the hunger situation in South Africa
has been growing for quite some time now. Covid just exposed the
hunger in South Africa. And when you go to a disaster, when I say
disaster, I mean a fire or a flood or a storm, when you see the
people eat, you realize they were hungry long before the disaster
hit them, that they've been sitting for months with not much
food. And during covid itself. We found children were eating plants
to survive, eating tortoises, eating locusts, eating lizards,
going to the dump heap to try to find food in the dump heap,
sucking out of a peanut bucket bottle, sucking out of a jam tin,
coming to the front of the chew of a soup kitchen and saying they
won't take much food, but will we give them food to take home for
their parents and their brothers and sisters, and you've seen
hunger, and hunger is a really a huge problem in South Africa. It's
there underneath, silently, but you see, and we've spent a lot of
money in supporting hunger projects. But of course, what the
country really needs is a huge increase in jobs for people to
become self sufficient and not to be dependent on grounds or
handouts.
Yes. So, so the situation in the Eastern Cape. Can you tell us
what's happening on the ground there at the moment? What have you
seen there,
in terms of the anger?
Yes, we see it all the time. You see that all the time. It's nice.
You see it in the public. You see it among the people. You sit down
all the time, every situation you go there, you see the Hungarian
cape. So we've been supporting them in a big way. We've got a
very good relationship. What the health department, you know, with
social development, I just met the national minister last week, and
everybody's trying to do what they can. The problem is there's far
more greater needs in South Africa, and there's money right
now no because of the tax base decreasing. So many people losing
their jobs, money that was stolen, you know, state capture,
corruption, money, discipline, and the mess of money that went into
the covid budget to deal with covid itself has caused a huge
dent on available cash to help as many people as possible. So the
reality is, there's millions of people who need to help, and the
reality is that you're not going to get
everybody you just doing such amazing work. And we want to, you
know, thank you for that. And you know, keep, keep up the good work.
And if people want to support you can they?
Yes, you know, we appreciate any kind of support. The needs are
huge. And you know, the details are on our social media pages. The
bank details are there. If you call it from South Africa, our 12
number is Oh, 807,
86911,
otherwise, all the details are on on the social media pages. It's
gift of the givers.org.
Doctor MJS suliweman from gift of the givers. It's just always
amazing to speak to you and the amazing work you're doing in South
Africa and Ukraine, you know, thank thank you so much. It's a
pleasure. Thank you.