Imtiaz Sooliman – SAs example of heroic humanitarian aid came when Ukraine called Gift of the Givers’ Dr Sooliman

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.