Imtiaz Sooliman – S’wana Know
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So you want to know. Welcome to the swanano podcast. I'm your
host. Annalisa SWANA join us every week as we explore extraordinary
conversations of triumph, resilience and anything you want
to know. Today, we have a very special guest with us, the founder
and CEO of gift of the givers, Doctor India, Suleman, welcome to
the Solano podcast. Thank you very much. How are you? I'm fine. Thank
you so Doctor Suleman. We are just going to start with some rapid
fire questions, nothing serious. We just want to get to know you.
Firstly, what's your favorite hobby, soccer, okay, what's the
last book you read and did you enjoy it? Oh, I don't have time to
do I was joking with somebody. Don't say I did is, what's ups
I don't have time to read books. I even didn't even read my school
books finished.
But whenever I read books, it's a lot to do with spiritual books,
okay? Religious books, and, you know, to do what? Spirituality,
okay, I read the chapter, and, I mean, four months later, I read
the same chapter, and then four months later, the same chapter
again. Just don't have time to continue with anything. Can
understand that? And what's your favorite food? It's called acne.
It's an Indian food, you know, rice and meat, rather chicken or
mutton, and you put some yogurt over it, and you have it with
pickle, that's the favorite food. Okay, do you have any pets? Yes,
well, my daughter's pet becomes my pet because kids gotta look after
the pet, and the parents are gonna look after the daughter and the
pet.
Sorry, there's a cat. Yes, there's a cat. Okay? And what's your
favorite way to relax and unwind after a long day? Action movies. I
love action movies, but quite often it's late at night, and most
of the time it's late at night, and quite often the movie is just
on that I'm not actually watching.
It's watching over time. Yes, it's that kind of stuff. I don't like
comedies and romantic stuff. I like action things, and I like the
movies that make you think, oh, you know, in terms of
investigation and all the makeup, brain work, and you figure out
things. So I like music like that, alright? And if you could go back
in time and give your younger self a piece of advice, what would it
be?
Well, the only piece of advice I can give myself is what I messed
up. And what I messed up is family time, you know, because and that I
didn't listen to the spiritual teacher. It told me that in what
you're doing, you need to give 1/3 to yourself, which I haven't done.
I wanted the family, which I haven't done, and wanted to the
organization, but four thirds went to the organization. So it's you
know, you I've lost up lots of time on the family. I got two
wives, otherwise, my children, my grandchildren, I barely have time
to talk to them. And it was really an indictment, because four days
ago, my daughter, who's a doctor, sends her small one to my house
because she's going to go on to this book. She does some local
information doctors, and then, with her mother. Asked her, like,
what did the domestic do? What did granny do? What did somebody else
do? And then she asked, What did Nana the grandfather do? She said
on the phone, and she's two years old. Oh,
man, so that's that sounded regret. We have to go back. I
won't change anything except family time, except family time,
so doctor and tell us what is a normal day in your life? It's very
hectic. I It's I sleep three hours a day. Well, I work 21 hours a
day. It starts off anytime at four o'clock or five o'clock. You start
off with the morning prayer. It's earlier in summer and later in
winter because of the sunset, sunrise. And then it's additional
prayer because of spiritual teaching. And then I start with
social media posts where I prepared them. I don't actually do
them. I don't know how the thing works, to be honest. I just send
them to my teams, and then they put it on and I connect it to it,
what's the event of the week, or what's the relevant issue, or if
the disaster, then, of course, everything focuses on the
disaster. And then that runs for a week or two weeks, depending
whether it's Turkey and Sadia, whether it floods, whether it's
the floods that you guys had in other floods in komani, you know,
or the fire industry that you guys had in the city, is related with
that. And then, of course, it's a school round, take the child to
school and come back. And then it's responding to all offices and
all the messages that come in and casual preparing for what has to
be done in terms of the office, because you got too many projects.
But in most cases, it's more about travel. I did 173
talks last year. I've done 100 already, and I'm in and out of
planes to the point that the guy in business class, in business
lounge in the airport, actually asked me, Do you like our place so
much? So it's a
thing like that. You know, it's like, for example, I flew from
marysburg on Tuesday to Joburg. In the morning, I flew to be in the
afternoon. I had an event last night.
This morning, I was in Jefferies Bay. Then I supposed to go to
euthanic, but we also running out of time. The guy agreed to meet us
here, and then I'm here tomorrow. I'm in Joburg in the morning and
evening I'm in Cape Town, and then they have Saturday, Sunday in Cape
Town, and the week before, something similar. Yeah, it's
like, there is too many events, and that's excluding my on site
visits for projects, yeah, excludes meetings, you know. And I
hardly see my stuff, except on the field and, you know, of course,
media interviews and that kind of stuff, and then just your life. So
it's very active. But Doctor Sloan, how do you keep up with all
of this? You know, the what keeps you going is that you're not on
the other side. When you see the suffering of people, and you keep
telling yourself, if my child is on the other side, what will I do?
You can't have a thing of compassion fatigue, because you
could have been on the other side. And people say, I got compassion
fatigue. What happens to you? We've seen children, old people,
young people, everybody, suffer. And you know the anxiety, the
uncertainty. And when you know God has given you a gift and a skill
and has given you speed and how to do things, it's very hard to sit
and do nothing. You know, you and you get a lot of individual
messages by Chinese and operation in Saudi Arabia, do you have some
connection? How to get them there? Sometimes you don't get it sorted
out. Somebody else do it, because by the time you get to it, you
know that somebody else has done it. You know, we got a flood here.
We got a disaster. Yeah, somebody needs a wheelchair there. And
it's, it's, it's bombardment, all of that. The WhatsApp just keep
coming in all the time. I don't read emails. I'm not forced out
reading my emails. How does I won't do anything. I'm not on
social media. Otherwise, I'll only be sitting reading those things
all the time, right? When I'm on social media, when I say, you
know, it's just to check my own Facebook page to make sure it's
being done correctly, but I don't engage anybody. Yeah? And on the
phone, it's not entertainment, it's just serious business. Yeah,
all my what's ups are serious business. My quads are serious
business. There's no leisure, no entertainment, nothing. A lot of
people want you to be South Africa's next president, because
it's everywhere wherever I go. There's a few issues with that.
Number one, the spiritual teacher in 95 promise that you will never
be in politics. Sure, you will never be in government. You will
never work for government, but you'll always work with
government. And I can see the logic of that. You know, the kind
of people, why do they want me to be because they want to say
delivery, yeah, the moment in the system, you'll see zero delivery.
Yeah. We're spending too much time fighting with each other and
getting nothing done, and it will destroy everything that we've
done. From the outside, I can dictate the terms. I don't follow
the rules, I break the rules, I do what I want. You know, it's about
human sort of delivery, and nobody stops me, right? So I can achieve
far more on the outside. The other advantage is, when you inside
government, are you from this political party? I don't know.
What could you no from the outside. There's no hindrance any
political party, corporate, because there's no agenda. That's
you know, even the ruling party, you know, knows that I have no
issue, and they know the country has said they want me to be
president, but I'm really not interested, because that's a
spiritual instruction, and I'm far Freer on the outside. Many years
ago, I was offered a post, an ambassador post, yeah, and I told
the minister, if I take the post, I work for you. If I don't take
the post, you work for me. Which is better?
I'm working for you.
That is much better. And of course, you know, when you're not
involved in diplomatic service, they I mean, there's much more
leeway. You can do things with less protocol. You can get away
with burden. Basically, it's a far more advantageous to be on the
outside. But it's encouraging on the one side that people that
means people recognize your work. On the second case, it's
disheartening to say, You know what, we're not happy with, what's
happening in the country, and the ruling party needs to change that.
And do you, you do say that you have a lot of engagements that you
that you attend? Do you ever get tired of taking pictures of
people? No, I can't. You know there is again, there's a problem.
People think that only you know, only
high class people or rich people, or, you know, people at a higher
and expensive table, can take a picture with certain kind of
people, and only people think, are we not good enough? We're not
important enough. And I don't want that ever to happen. And when they
come for that picture is not so much because, you know, you gotta
get celebrity status. It's because it's out of love, and you can't
turn it away
and in the streets, I walk the car that stops me. The petrol tendon
stops me. When you eat him with your family, people will come out
to eating and tell you know we're very sorry. We know it's your
family time, but either the
family takes the picture for the person. No to say, You know what?
We understand it's not a problem. Take it and you get small kids,
four years old, five years old, they identify you. You want to
take a picture. And I said, you know, it's a form of love, and I
can't say no in now, when I do an event, I got a budget, 40 minutes
for the event and one hour for the pictures. Wow, yes, you know,
because people come, everybody wants a picture. And then the
ladies, they know the haze
for the makeup, yeah. They.
Like, sorry, my eyes closed. Can you just take it again? And then
can you take this, two of us together, but now we're a bigger
group. Can we take three pictures? It's that kind of story, but you
know, it's a lot of love and, you know, and in appreciation of the
work that you do, I can't say no, so that's awesome. Please tell us,
how was gift of forgiveness founded? Well, it's not my
organization. We need to understand that it has a total
spiritual basis. I was told by a South African our spiritual
teacher that he met in America. That spiritual teacher was comes
from Turkey. Okay? That teacher passed away in 1985
I met the guy in 1986 and he knew the teacher from 1985 and he told
me that a new one takes over. Yes. He said, You need to go to Turkey.
And I joked. I said, Brother, it's 1986 I haven't seen Cape Town yet.
When am I going to go to Turkey? And you said something very
profound. You said, what God was happens? There's a time and a
place. August, 91 my wife and I landed in Turkey, in Istanbul.
It's a long story. We met spiritual teacher. That was the
beginning of an incredible journey, because it was post Gulf
War. Post Gulf War had polarized civilization and nations. The
perception was Christians, Hindus and Jews on one side and Muslims
on the other side, and, you know, and east on one side, west on one
side, and coming from an apartheid pastor and help. And we came to
this place, and we see Americans, Russians, people from Europe,
Asia, Africa, South America, North America, all in a Muslim holy
place, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, people who say they don't
believe people of other faiths altogether. No friction, no
discord. Absolutely come. And I'm saying, if we can have a word like
this, wow, this is the ideal world. I remember, coming from an
apartheid past that was my that was my reality. And the teacher
says we can't judge anyone. People have good in them. Yes, always
talk about the good. Don't run the negative. Don't criticize people.
You know, look at everybody with Satan, love and respect, that's
what religion and spirituality is all about. And immediately, my
prejudice, my stereotypes, everything left me, and I fell in
love with what I saw the following year. My heart tells me you need
to go back there. So on the sixth of August, 92 Thursday night, 10pm
I'm in a spiritual place where we do what is called a zikr. A zikr
in Arabic terms, is a celebration of God's names in Arabic, but in
English, and all the scriptures, and everybody's but in their
scriptures, will say, God the one and only, loving, eternal,
absolute, kind, compassionate, merciful, nourisher, sustainer,
and, you know, cherisher, creation of the Creator of the universe.
And so it goes. And so they decided that. And then exactly
when that finished the spirituality, just put his head
up, made eye contact with me. I was on the other side of the room,
and he looked heaven words at the same time in FLUENT dakish. I
don't speak a word of Turkish. I understood every single word that
he said in Turkish that night. He said, My son, I'm not asking you,
I'm instructing you, sorry, the second time I met him, I'm
instructing you to form an organization. The name in Arabic
will be work for warakine, translated gift of the givers. You
will have all people of all races, all religions, all colors, all
classes, all cultures, of any geographical location and of any
political application, but you will serve them unconditionally.
You will expect nothing in return, not even a thank you. In fact, in
what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life, I was 30
years old, expect to get a kick up your back. If you don't get a kick
up your back, regard it as a bonus, serve people with love,
kindness, compassion and mercy, and remember the dignity of men is
foremost. So if someone is down, don't push them down further, hold
them, elevate them. Wipe the tear of a grieving child, care caress
the head of it. Often say words of good counsel to a widow. These
things are free. They don't cost anything. Clothe the naked, feed
the hungry, provide water to the thirsty, and in everything that
you do, be the best at what you do, not because of ego, but
because we're dealing with human life, human emotion, human
suffering and human dignity. He repeats, this is an instruction
for you for the rest of your life. And remember, my son, that
whatever you do is done through you and not by you.
31 years, I'm a living witness that the kind of things the world,
things that I do, is not humanly possible. I asked him, How come
when you speak Turkish, I understand, and other people speak
Turkish, I don't understand.
He said, My son, when the hearts connect and the souls connect, the
words become understandable. I asked him, What exactly do you
want me to do? I'm a doctor.
I have three surgeries in a place called Peter marisburg in South
Africa. When do I do this? Like after hours, weekends, public
holidays and what do I do? He told me one night, you will know for 31
years, I do know what to do, how to touch, what to touch, what not
to touch. In fact, the moment I walked out of that place on the
sixth of August, 92 it came to me respond to the civil war in
Bosnia. The same month, I took in 32 containers of eight into a war
zone all alone. Eight in November, I took eight containers of winter
items. The Chill Factor in Eastern Europe in winter can reach minus
21 degrees. And the following year, 93 we designed the world's
first containerized mobile hospital, a product of South
African technology, built in Africa and taken into Europe. But
I've got my answer. The first project was 32 containers. The
second project, eight containers. The third project, the hospital.
But it was all disaster related. So in essence, we were going to be
a disaster in the Related agency intervening locally and
internationally in war zones, earthquakes, hurricanes, flood,
famine, the temp that was set and whatever happened after that was
Secondly, the essential thing was disaster intervention. We have 21
different categories of projects not disasters or excluding
disaster categories, excluding disasters and we do everything,
wheelchair distribution, winter warmth, you know, pre
rehabilitation for that, for animals, infrastructure, of
schools, hospitals, counseling services, boreholes, lots of
different things that We do and but primary focus the disaster
intervention. Wow, was it easy for you to to live your life as a, as
a, as a, as a doctor, leave it and concentrate on the core. Well, I
didn't know how big this was going to be sure, right? So then I
closed my practice. I went up and down when disaster required me.
And then by June 94 because I was involved in Bosnia for three
years, my wife said, You know what, this is not working. Your
patients don't want to see the local we're paying for the locum,
but they're not coming, and you don't oversee any other doctor,
and the kids are getting sick, this is not going to suddenly get
we probably going to die in the process. We must make up your
mind, either you running a surgery or you're running gifts of the
givers? And I said, there's no distorted, complicated decision,
because the teacher said it's an instruction for you for the rest
of your life. And of course, I touched many more lives and gifts
of the givers than as an individual seeing 30 patients a
day.
And she said, Okay, he took a two bullet decision and shut all
through my practices. One more on the 30th June of 1994
and and in the process, every time I met the teacher, I went to
Turkey 28 times. Every time I met a teacher, you said it will get
bigger. He said a lot of things that I'm telling you now you won't
understand. You'll understand it much later in life, which
happened? And when he said, big, big, it's only during the time of
covid and a year or two before that, I understood what he's
talking about. Now, this thing has gone just out of control. It's
just so big, you know. And it just keeps growing with every single
day. But I have no regrets giving up my practice because I want to
skill well. He said, You will know, it's not something I have to
learn. It just comes to me. You know, it's hard for me to explain
that I just know what to do, yeah, but the experience, the joy, you
know, the fulfillment, the contentment, I will never replace
it for anything else in the world. As I said, if I start again, the
only thing I would add in was the family time, which I'm trying to
start off a week ago.
But that's awesome. That is so awesome. My last question, I know
that, apart from the short term assistance that you give at gift
of the givers, you are continuously searching for long
term, long term solutions. I just want to know, how do you manage to
do all this work?
It's very spiritual, again, very difficult to understand, you know,
and everything comes to you because you do. I mean, did in 15
years ago, could we plan we going to have covid? You can't have a
long term planning, right? What important in our kind of work is
how you respond to what's put in front of you. So, okay, this is
covid. What does this virus do? It takes away oxygen. So what do you
need? You need oxygen, but this means this will be more patients
in hospital, which means we need more beds. We need oxygen points.
You're going to need more water. You're going to reach more bulk
oxygen supplies. You're going to need more stuff. The staff want to
get sick. They're probably going to die, you know? So you need
backup stuff. Then you're going to need counseling services, because
the staff and the family members are affected. The port is going to
die. You're going to need more people to carry the patient on.
Patient on the trolley. You're going to need more trolleys, more
ambulance drivers. You may have to expand hospitals. We need to
modify it. You may need to upgrade infrastructure. We may need more
water. You know, you need dedicated oxygen units hospitals.
But then now the government's not going to manage private is
expensive, so we need to put up just.
Teams. How many testing teams you going to put? Are they going to
come to you? Are you going to be mobile? You know, what's going to
be the cheapest price? What open you're going to use? How fast,
which different types of tests you look at, all that kind of stuff.
You know, how do you talk to somebody in ICU? You can't go in.
The patient dies alone. You need a TV system. You know, some kind of
we didn't do all the stuff, but we supported a lot of that sort
because, and okay, they did PPEs, they need scrubs. They did
sanitizer. And when they looked at that, they say, okay, that's what
the medical point of view, but it's locked down. So what happens
to people the ugly so you're going to expand the food parcel and the
soup kitchen now you're bringing the people who know the people you
go into some rural area you know, and say, okay, mother, well, we
coming to you. Lady, okay, Tandy, you been doing feeding? How long I
feed 30 people a day, but now, Doctor suderman, it's 10 people a
day, so I can't manage. Okay, you need more bucks. Yes, I need more
raw materials. I'm with the cookbook, but I need more fuel for
the fire. I need more raw materials. I have some tickets
that come. The schools are closed. There's no school feeding program.
So we need to feed more kids. I'm going to need more vehicles to do
more deliveries. That's on the food side and on the medical side,
building oxygen machines. So you look at all that and say, Okay,
what do you do? And by God's grace, transport company would
say, a car company would say, you can take it. Vehicles from us
while covid is on, you can use it No. Judge, no. And God, put the
things in front of us. Everything just came, food came, money came
and and South Africans volunteered to help each other. Okay, your
mother's got covid means she can't cook. We'll cook the food and take
it to your house. And that happened throughout the country.
It's the spirit of our nation, and that's why I tell people stop
worrying about failed state. There is no failed state. It's only a
failed state of mind. You know what? We've got a greatest country
on Earth. We got people who care for each other. We will fix
anything. When you have resilience, when you have care,
when you have spirituality, when you have faith, when you have love
and support for each other. There's no problem we can't fix,
and we will fix this country. It won't take more than three years
to be honest, you know? So, yes, so those are the kind of things
come and you plan what to do and how to do it. So there's no long
term planning. But then when covid sort of died down, what happened?
Now, we got a backlog of surgery because all the electro surgery
was closed. Now you got 4000 candidates here, 2000 candidates
here, orthopedic surgery backlog here, grounds to be put in there,
gyne procedures. But you got a new challenge. You need to start
dealing with all that. And we got involved for catch up surgery. And
then the water crisis came. So you need balls in hospitals and in
schools. Then load cherry came. So now the ball can't pump because
there's no electricity to bottom the ball. So then you need
additional JoJo tanks, you know, African tanks in river reserve, to
push out more water. When the electricity comes back and they're
okay, they put solar panels, but then solar panels get stolen, so
you need security for the solar panels. So those are the kind of
things on an everyday basis you gotta look at, yes, what's just
ongoing, but it happens. Yes, it's possible you can do it and people
benefit. Yes, doctor Silverman, thank you so much. Thank you so
much, and thank you for the wonderful, amazing work. That gift
doctor gave us. Does that is where we ended off with you today. Thank
you very, very much for joining us. It's a pleasure. Thanks a lot
for the invite, and thanks for all the support that your media and
giving us during covid, before and after. We appreciate it. Thank you
for taking the message to other people.
Thank you so so much. That's all we have for you today. Join us
again next week on suanalo, stay motivated. Stay inspired. Thank
you. Applause.