The Zayn B. Ennis (ZBE) Foundation was born from a place of profound love and enduring strength, created in honour of our beloved son, Zayn a.k.a Zaynie. What began as a promise to keep his light alive has grown into a mission: to restore hope, protect dignity, and create opportunities for our young people, our families, and communities in Jamaica and across the Caribbean.
From day one, our work has focused on saving lives and improving the quality of care for some of the most vulnerable among us. The Foundation has helped mobilize critical support for Jamaica’s public health system, including facilitating millions of dollars in lifesaving neonatal care equipment and upgrades for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the University Hospital of the West Indies, so that premature and vulnerable babies have a fighting chance.
As the needs of our communities have grown, our mission has evolved with them.
Zayn’s journey was one that touched the hearts of many. Born prematurely, he spent his early days in the NICU, surrounded by the diligent care of dedicated medical professionals and the love of his family. It was during this time that we witnessed firsthand the critical need for advanced medical equipment and resources in neonatal care. Zayn’s bravery and strength inspired us to ensure that every newborn receives the best possible start in life, regardless of the challenges they face.
We exist because love is not passive. Love moves. Love shows up in the NICU at 2 a.m. with the right equipment. Love shows up in the middle of a Category 5 hurricane with clean water and emergency shelter. Love shows up again six months later with rebuilding plans.
The ZBE Foundation is how we show up.
In honour of Zayn, we will continue to fight for children, protect families, and stand with communities in their most fragile moments — not just in times of celebration, but in times of disaster, grief, and rebuilding.
Zayn’s light guides our work. His legacy is hope.
Everything we do comes back to these four pillars:
We work with families experiencing crisis — whether medical, economic, or environmental — to close urgent gaps and prevent long-term harm. That means providing direct aid and mobilizing partners quickly when systems are overwhelmed.
We coordinate frontline relief efforts in the aftermath of natural disasters such as Hurricane Beryl (2024) and Hurricane Melissa (2025), delivering supplies, supporting shelters, assisting recovery of health services, and helping communities rebuild stronger.
Our goal is not only to respond to crisis, but to build local capacity so communities are better prepared for the next one.
We believe that recovery is more than repairing buildings — it’s restoring hope. The Foundation invests in initiatives that return dignity to families after loss: repairing critical spaces, re-opening access to care, and creating pathways back to normal life, especially for children who have experienced trauma.
The Caribbean is experiencing increasingly severe climate shocks, and Jamaica has suffered the consequences of this. When Hurricane Beryl struck in July 2024, destructive winds and widespread flooding ravaged parts of the island, destroying homes, damaging crops, disrupting electricity supply for hundreds of thousands of people, and leaving families — especially in southern and coastal communities in urgent need of basic supplies and safe shelter.
In October 2025, Hurricane Melissa made catastrophic landfall in Jamaica as one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic. With winds over 180 mph and extreme flooding across parishes like St. Elizabeth, Melissa damaged hospitals, roads, and homes, forced thousands into emergency shelters, and cut off entire communities from power, clean water, and medical access.
In response to these disasters, the ZBE Foundation expanded its mandate beyond advocacy and healthcare support to include direct disaster relief, resilience, and rebuilding. Our Hurricane Relief Initiative coordinates the delivery of essential supplies, medical support, and emergency assistance to families displaced by extreme weather events. We work to restore immediate dignity — food, water, shelter, care — but we don’t stop there. We stay present in the recovery, focusing on long-term needs: rebuilding community infrastructure, supporting affected hospitals and clinics, and helping families return to stability.
This is not charity from afar. This is capacity-building from within. We partner with local and international stakeholders — health workers, schools, churches, youth programs, and community leaders — to make sure help reaches the people who need it most, especially children, single mothers, and the elderly.
