Meet Jamii Life
Jamii Life (meaning community in Swahili) is a platform that connects vetted health workers with people that need home-based care and families that need help caring for frail or sickly family members. At Jamii Life we believe that the way that we can care for the elderly and the sick is through community. It is our hope that we enhance this tradition of care in our communities.
THE FOUNDER AND THE OPPORTUNITY
Zeenith Ebrahim grew up in Kensington in Cape Town and moved back to the Mother City one year ago to focus on building Jamii Life. The idea for Jamii Life was inspired when Zeenith’s grandmother was bedridden for 16 years and her family cared for her while Zeenith lived and worked in Johannesburg. Jamii Life is the service Zeenith wishes her family had growing up.
LEARNINGS
1. Find solutions to problems
NGOs servicing home-based care provide an invaluable service for our communities. However, these NGOs are often stretched too thin, and there is a need to supplement the training that health workers receive. Jamii Life’s services are two-fold and speak directly to this problem.
2. Use what you are passionate about
Zeenith has a passion for photography. One of her favourite moments happened when she was observing healthcare workers and took pictures of how they were interacting and caring for their patients. This occurrence led her to meet two of Jamii Life’s current health workers.
3. Understand and learn from your community
What makes Jamii Life unique is that we are rooted in communities, and try as far as possible to use health workers that live in the communities that we serve. We also value listening and have taken the time to learn from more than 200 community health workers. Their insights have helped us immensely and continue to help us structure our care.
4. Use technology to facilitate your service
We use technology to facilitate collaboration between health workers and families, and the platform we offer is as focused on empowering health workers with skills as it is on delivering the necessary care. An app is not the only answer to a service-based business, but rather a tool we need to work with, to design a solution that includes technology but is not led by it.
WHAT IS NEXT FOR JAMII LIFE?
Jamii Life is focused on ramping up operations, including ensuring all processes are in place for our product launch. Another focal point will be raising the additional funding that we need to train and subsidise the health workers whilst we ramp up our operations
FINAL WORDS
There are help and support options for everyone that needs help caring for themselves or for families that care for the loved ones. Even if you think you can't afford it, please reach out to us. We can help you by listening, providing care and advice, and connecting you to resources.
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