User:Avneref/Haim Teib

Haim Taib (Born September 30, 1960 in Jerusalem) is an Israeli and international businessman and philanthropist, who operates in a number of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly in Angola. Mitrelli Group, controlled by Taib, manages programs in various fields, especially in the fields of infrastructure, agriculture, education, water, energy, housing and hospitals. In this way, the company assists the governments to rehabilitate their countries, mainly from the destruction caused by civil wars.

Taib was an executive of LR Group, towards the end of Angolan Civil War. In the course of his work, he initiated the supply of technical equipment and vehicles to the government. In doing so, he helped end the war after 27 years.

Biography
Haim Taib was born in Jerusalem to a family of new immigrants from Tunisia. His father Eliahu Lulu immigrated to Israel at the age of 12 with two sisters through Aliyat Hano'ar. His father's parents, Chaim and Koka (Rivka), came later on a boat. It was the grandmother Koka who decided to travel aboard the ship "Sanjer" to Marseilles, after an airplane that brought immigrants from Tunis crashed near Oslo. Taib's mother, Janet Ben-Toza arrived with her parents from Tunis to Al-Khalisa transit camp, which later became the town Kiryat Shmona. The parents moved from there to Malha neighborhood of Jerusalem, where Haim Taib was born.

Haim was named after his grandfather, Haim Taib, who was a descendant of Rabbi Yitzhak Hay Taib. When Taib was three years old, his parents and grandparents moved to the Moshav Olesh. Taib was one of seven children, and since a young age he had already been working in the family farm. He enlisted to IDF, serving as a tank mechanic, and later as a supervisor in the 401st Brigade, where he fought in the 1982 Lebanon War. After being discharged from the army, he started working for the an agriculture company.

In 1989, Taib came to Portugal

on a "Ramit" mission to sell a new technology to grow turkey. Two years later he left the company and began working as an independent salesman. The economic delegate of the Israeli Embassy, Gabi Nahum, brought him together with Eitan Steeva, Who was a director and director of the Portuguese company Lucis, a subsidiary of LR, which Stevie was one of its founders. Together, they began importing products for the automotive industry, locks and office supplies from Israel. During the economic crisis in Portugal in 1992, Taib was offered to travel to Angola to try to sell Israeli products there.

Activity in Angola
Angola in 1992 was in a long civil war, which began upon independence from Portugal in 1975. The country's infrastructure was devastated, poverty and hunger were common. But Taib and LR saw this as an opportunity to help rebuild the country to do business. Taib began field work to sell locks and security systems for cars. When he learned that the communications network of the international airport of the capital Luanda collapsed, he proposed to contact the Israeli company ECI Telecom to rehabilitate the system. Within a few days, a new system was installed, following which control systems and track lighting were ordered, in a deal worth more than $2 million. Following the success of the deal, Taib received orders for additional installations at five airports in the country. Steeva appointed Taib as the company's representative in Angola, and together they expanded the country's activity to the national communications field, especially cellular communications, pushing Motorola and employing Israeli technicians and engineers. Their Israeli experience gave them an advantage in working in a country in a civil war, with some of the work being carried out in combat zones.

In 1997, the company has already established a 13,000-subscriber network of Angola Telecom. A short while later, Stiva and Taib became the company's managers, in its new name, Mobisel, and a decade later the company served over two million subscribers.

At the same time, Taib established a consulting, financing and agricultural project management company in the fertile areas that were ruined and neglected by the war. In addition, Taib established a construction company that engaged in residential construction in rural areas.

In 1999 Taib returned to live in Israel. At that time, senior government officials in Angola, including the governor of the central bank, asked him to help the government overcome the rebels and end the civil war. Taib was afraid to intervene, because he did not want to sell arms and combat systems, and because the rebels had the support of the Republican administration in the United States and of other Western countries, including Israel. Together with his partners, he offered to supply the Angolians with radar equipment, to track the supply flights of the rebels, who controlled most of the country's airspace, and later supplied two Sukhoi jet fighters, which were imported from the Ukraine and Russia, The government has succeeded in disrupting rebel activities, and the very arrival of the planes deterred the rebels without having to open fire at all. Taib refused the government's request to supply them with mines, but found that trucks supplied were used to detonate rebel minefields when the drivers were sent on suicide missions. Last to end the war, Taib organized a supply of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) The government locate the rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi and kill him.

Following the incident, an armistice agreement was signed, in which President Jose Eduardo dos Santos joined some of the rebel leaders to his government, and the civil war ended.

After the war
Following a personal request by Angolan President Dosh Santos, Taib proposed to the president to rehabilitate agriculture in the country with the help of hundreds of thousands of discharged soldiers from the two camps that had previously fought each other. The president gave his approval, and LR began to build the project. The uncontrolled centralization of the administration in Angola, and the obedience of the former soldiers' population, facilitated the rapid progress of the project. The project began experimentally in one district, and was designed in a similar format to the moshav. The project was managed by Taib together with Gabi Nahum, who was formerly the economic director of the embassy, and now joined the company. Both of them grew up in Israel in Moshavs, and so they knew the Moshav structure from their own experience.

The project is called Aldeia Nova - Portuguese for "The New Village". The project was successful initially, and three years from its inception began to transfer farm management to local residents. Three years later, the project was in a crisis, when the residents felt they were not earning enough from selling the produce. Through a new company that Taib is president, the "Mitrelli Group", and together with his partner, Itzik Cohen, took over. The company acquired the logistics centers and 40% of the project. Ownership of the rest of the project remained in government hands. The farms were not profitable, but they provided work and were the infrastructure for technological education and an exit for independence.

At the same time the company began to engage in education. Taib promoted the "RTP" project (Reforma ), Portuguese for "Reform in Vocational Education", a project initiated by Lucis in 2005, in a format similar to that of ORT Israel and "Mati" MATI. In which 52 young Israeli students have been selected to rehabilitate them through professional training, and the village is run jointly with the Silesian Church of Angola And Lucis, a representative of the Vatican, visited the village and recommended that the project be extended to other villages, including the admission of female students Risk.

Following the success of the "Kabiri" youth village, Miterlli's "Focus" subsidiary established two educational and business entrepreneurship projects. One of them called "Enab", deals with the training of administrative managers for all government institutions in the country.

At Taib's initiative, "Mitrelli Group" has established additional assistance projects in the country, including:
 * "Fundaca Arte E Cultura", with a budget of $2 million. The fund supports local artists, and pays directly to professionals to ensure proper use of the budget. The fund also has management and education personnel from Israel.
 * Luanda Medical Center
 * Work clinics in Viana
 * A new youth village, in Moshiko province,

Activity in Israel
Mitrali has established a foundation in Israel to support the Amal High School for the Arts and Sciences in Hadera. In Or Yehuda, she established a program to support youth at risk. Another social project is in Jaffa.

Taib established, along with a group of businessmen, the Israeli-Angolan Chamber of Commerce, with the aim of building bridges and encouraging cooperation between representatives of business and government companies in Israel And in Angola.

Recently, Taib joined SACH - Save A Child's Heart Association, in order to save the lives of children from developing countries who need heart surgery In Israel. So far (2018), the association has worked to save the lives of about 5,000 children from 55 countries, some of whom do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. This activity was recognized by Pope Francis, who expressed this in a personal meeting in Vatican City.

Among the other projects in which Taib is involved in Israel are:
 * The Israeli Congress for Judaism and Democracy, which was established in order to encourage discourse on the ethical, moral and ethical path of the conduct of Israeli society.

Taib has formed a partnership with the Center for Jewish and Democratic Law at the Bar-Ilan University to discuss the Jewish and democratic foundations on which life in Israel is based. • The Shalva organization, which treats children with disabilities.

Personal life Taib is married to Iris, and they have a son together. From his first two wives he has five children, and one granddaughter. He lives in Kfar Shmaryahu.