A week after a powerful 7.0 tremor ripped through Haiti in January 2010, time was running out for Ena Zizi. The 64-year-old woman was trapped, without food and water, eight meters under the rubble of Port-au-Prince's ruined cathedral. A  team of rescuers from South Africa worked against the clock to rescue her, with the stench of decomposing bodies in their nostrils. After two-and-a-half hours, the rescuers from the Gift of the Givers Foundation managed to pull Zizi out of the debris of the once-imposing building. The South African team, working alongside a Mexican group, made headlines around the world and became front-page news back home. Imtiaz Sooliman, who founded Gift of the Givers, says the rescue mission marked the first time rescuers from an African country pulled someone out of earthquake rubble alive in another part of the world.
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South African Imtiaz Sooliman launched the Gift of the Givers Foundation in 1992
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The aid agency is the biggest disaster relief group of African origin
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It has delivered aid to 32 countries, including Haiti, Pakistan and Somalia
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Sooliman says the group proves that Africa can make a positive contribution to the world
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"@placeholder sent a very strong statement: They said we are African and Somalia is African and we're going to respond to our brothers and sisters in Africa -- even to the point people told me that poor people in South Africa refuse to receive donations that they normally receive.
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"South Africa sent a very strong statement: They said we are @placeholder and Somalia is African and we're going to respond to our brothers and sisters in Africa -- even to the point people told me that poor people in South Africa refuse to receive donations that they normally receive.
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@placeholder has personally traveled twice to famine-ravaged Somalia to deliver, not only food, but also medical expertise and equipment .
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Sooliman says his aid agency, which has three warehouses in @placeholder packed with supplies, would be able to feed tens of thousands of people if a disaster struck now.