Topic: The way to fix SA!

The endeavours of Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, Founder and Chairman of Gift of the Givers​, has seen the Foundation emerge as one of the most respected humanitarian organisations in the world and is today the largest disaster response agency of African origin anywhere on the continent. Since 1992, he has steered the organisation to many Notable Achievements and World Firsts, including:

• Implementing 21 different categories of projects;
• Delivering well in excess of R4,5 billion rand of aid;
• Coming to the assistance of millions of people in no fewer than 45 countries across the globe, inclusive of South Africa;
• Designing and developing the world's first and only containerised mobile hospital of its kind, which was deployed in Bosnia and has been compared by CNN to any of the best hospitals in Europe;
• Designing the world's first containerised primary healthcare unit in 1994
• Innovating the world's first groundnut-soya high-energy and protein supplement, which has proved ideal for people suffering from conditions of HIV/AIDS, TB, malnutrition, cancer and other debilitating disorders;
• Heading the first organisation in the history of South Africa to have received R60 million from the Government for the design and successful roll-out of 204 000 food parcels;
• Alleviating problems associated with a ravaging drought in South Africa by drilling 400 boreholes in just 18 months
• Rescuing 64-year-old Ena Zizi alive, after being trapped under rubble for eight days without food or water and with a fractured hip, in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake of 2010. This was a world first for an African organisation involved in earthquake search and rescue outside Africa.

His establishment of the Gift of the Givers Foundation was the result of a message Dr Sooliman, then aged 30, received from Sufi Sheikh Muhammed Saffer Effendi al Jerrahi, his spiritual leader in Turkey, who called on him to serve all people of all races, all religions, all colours, all classes, all political affiliations and any geographical location... a calling he honoured then and continues to honour today.

He was born in Potchefstroom. He attended College in Durban, going on to study medicine at the University of KZN, qualifying as a medical doctor in 1984. He commenced private practice in Pietermaritzburg in 1986, but chose to close his flourishing practice in 1994, choosing instead to focus his attention on the Gift of the Givers Foundation, which he founded in1992.

In consideration of our hotel partner the registrations will close at 22h00 on Tuesday, 13th February, unless we are sold out prior to that time.