Zeenith Ebrahim (US-Canada 2021)
Zeenith Ebrahim (38) is in a PhD program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which she expects to complete in May 2023.
Zeenith grew up in a coloured community in Cape Town, South Africa, with high levels of crime and unemployment.
Inspired by the professional sacrifices her family made to care for her grandmother who was bedridden for 16 years, Zeenith founded the social enterprise “Jamii Life” (jamii is Swahili for “community”) to deliver affordable home-based care in communities of South Africa. While alleviating the care burden on the primarily female family caregivers, enabling them to pursue productive careers.
In addition to working to improve care for seniors, boost training, pay, and working conditions for health care providers, and free up family caregivers, Zeenith chairs the board of Molo Songololo, a 40-year-old organization that protects children from sexual abuse, trafficking, and exploitation, and where she first volunteered at the age of 14.
A referee says of Zeenith, “She has faced challenges that most would consider insurmountable, yet [she] has found ways to navigate and overcome them in the most gentle, kind and thoughtful manner.
