Our Mission
Maziwa was founded to ignite the potential of African mothers to balance their baby’s health and their family’s economic wellbeing. We believe all mothers should be empowered to provide the best care for their babies without sacrifice.
Our Story
Hi, my name is Sahar Jamal and I’m the Founder of Maziwa.
My family is from Tanzania and India and I have spent the last decade focused on improving maternal and newborn health in this region, as a CSR Lead for Johnson & Johnson UK and a strategic consultant for the Aga Khan Development Network. Four years ago, I left my job as a Senior Brand Manager at J&J to get an MBA at the Kellogg School of Management and dedicate myself to global health full-time.
Then, while working at Jacaranda Health, I met hundreds of mothers who were torn between staying home to breastfeed or returning to work to support their families. This inspired the idea for Maziwa. We have launched an innovative product, gathered feedback from hundreds of mums, raised seed funding from credible partners like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, attracted exciting press, and won several awards and competitions.
We hope you will join us in this journey to ensure that no mother has to choose between her baby’s health and her family’s economic wellbeing.
- Sahar Jamal, Founder of Maziwa
Maziwa means “milk” in Swahili, and is the name that is shared by three separate entities – two nonprofit organizations, in Canada and the US, and a social enterprise in Kenya – united in a common mission of enabling working mothers in developing countries to express breastmilk to feed their children.
Each nonprofit is committed to reinvest 100% of the proceeds from its activities into the into the mission, and the social enterprise is committed to reinvest the majority of its profits back into the mission in order to achieve sustainable growth of the mission.