R5m for Haiti relief efforts
2010-01-29 15:02
Special Report
There is not much left of the city's numerous churches, beside crosses and the occasional surviving stained glass window...
Cape Town - A Cape Town-based business on Friday presented a R5m donation to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti.
"Our only hope is that these funds find their way to the most vulnerable members of the community and somehow help them in their quest to rebuild their shattered lives," Nazeem Ebrahim, Oasis Group Holdings marketing director told the media on Friday.
A quake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale hit the impoverished Caribbean nation on January 12, killing an estimated 200 000 people.
The company had provided assistance in the past following disasters such as the south-east Asia tsunami in 2004 and the Mozambique floods in 2002.
The cheque was handed to Dr Imtiaz Sooliman from humanitarian aid organisation Gift of the Givers.
This was the biggest single donation the 18-year-old organisation had received, he said. The R5m would be spent on medical supplies and equipment such as an X-ray machine.
Gift of the Givers had a medical team of 53 people in Haiti.
Broken
Sooliman said: "What you see and what you hear does not adequately describe the horror of what is on the other side. Pictures do not capture the stench of decaying corpses, they do not capture the total scale of devastation. It does not capture the brokenness of a child that is standing with no parents around it, it does not capture the horror of amputation and diseased limbs, it does not capture broken adults and women staring all the time with emotionless eyes and broken hearts and no smiles."
"That emotion can never be captured on television, in print media or on radio. It can only be captured live when you see it for yourself."
The South African teams who had been there had found it very difficult, he said.
Sooliman had spoken to his team on Thursday night. They said they could not sleep and would need trauma counselling. They will return home on Sunday.
A new team would be sent out once an assessment had been done.
Ambassador for the department of international relations and co-operation Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko, conveyed the government's appreciation for the collective effort of the South African people and thanked Oasis for its donation.
The department would provide assistance with the distribution of the funds to ensure they reached those who needed it most.
- SAPA
