Dr Imtiaz Sooliman presents the Barry Streek/Donwald Pressly Memorial Lecture on Building Bridges

The Cape Town Press Club is honoured to have Dr Imtiaz Sooliman of Gift of the Givers present the annual Barry Streek/Donwald Pressly Memorial Lecture.

Dr Sooliman gave up his career as a medical doctor to pursue the field of humanitarian aid. In 1992, he founded the Gift of the Givers Foundation. It has since delivered R6 Billion aid to 47 countries and is the largest disaster response, non-governmental organisation of African origin on the African continent. It is the first such agency to be accredited by Proudly South African.

The foundation provides disaster relief, primary healthcare clinical services, feeding schemes, water purification and boreholes, distributes blankets, clothing and food parcels, provides bursaries and educational support, facilitates with agricultural self-help schemes and job creation, provides counselling services and drug rehabilitation, and support in the HIV/AIDS sector. Its latest relief activity was to mobilise help for Haiti in the wake of the earthquake disaster.

Dr Sooliman will address the Cape Town Press Club on  “Building Bridges: How Humanitarian Work Transcends Political and Religious Divides”.  Dr Sooliman will also discuss from his frontline perspective, how the media can better report on humanitarian work in disaster zones.  He will take questions.

Photo: Aljazeera