02/03/2026
FUNDRAISER APPEAL FOR MAMA RUKIA 😭🙏
After losing her husband in 1994, 75-year old Mama Rukia Ali, a frail, battered and chronically ill resident of Nairobi's Mukuru Kayaba, sank into a life of utter desperation, abject poverty and a never-ending cycle of struggle, medical upheavals and even family ostracisation.
Daily, Mama Rukia, a devout Muslim of Somali heritage, and who has lived in Mukuru Kayaba for a staggering 40 years, wakes up to yet another biting reality: pennilessness, pain, deteriorating health and an accumulation of bills which tear into her soul and eat into her spirit.
Mama Rukia, already battling a myriad of illnesses, has to swallow handfuls of pills each morning before marching out of her dilapidated Mukuru Kayaba rental single room to eke a living - astonishingly, to hawk inner wear and shukas under the punishing Nairobi sun.
At Mukuru, Mama Rukia has witnessed it all; the death of her son, followed by that of his wife, and then by that of her son's mother-in-law, leaving her struggling to raise the two young boys her son Hassan Suleiman left behind.
Despite her advanced age, her frail body and the unimaginable effects medicines have impacted onto her over the years, the 75-year old, still determined and hopeful, rising each morning, crawling through the labyrinth of Mukuru's sewage-paved corridors, before dragging into the daylight, to at least sell a garment or two, walking for long distances, criss-crossing the pathways, from Hazina to South B, up Mombasa Road's eastate and sometimes all the way to Westlands, battered, hungry and crushingly defeated.
Sometimes it works out. Most times it doesn't. And Mama Rukia has to trudge back home, still hopeful, but unbearably drained.
Seated at her derelict house, whose cold floors startle you, and lack of lighting slaps you hard, Mama Rukia stares blankly, sighing heavily, muttering to herself, reminiscing about her painful journey on earth, and questioning why her life had to be such a painful walk of shame.
Calmly, and with a quivering voice and pitiful timidness, Mama Rukia narrates that, for two weeks now, she has been without power, only scraping around in the dark every one of the last 14 days, the anguish of being thrust into darkness, confusion and nighttime bleakness shattering her every time it's almost evening.
She pauses for a minute, too distraught to keep the sob story running, blurting in despair: "Ni k**a Mungu aliniweka duniani niteseke!"
Just outside the corrugated sheets structure she has called home for 40 years, sewage water, filled with waste and sometimes f***l matter, runs down the drains, right outside her door, the stench knocking her off for decades, but there's little she can do about the environment. It's a slum. And she's aware of the challenges.
The circumstances have made her sick, literally. Seen her whisked to hospital at odd hours, put on oxygen masks and jammed with injections from all corners, efforts to recusitate her becoming a recurring theme in her endless misery.
After a rough day, where she battles traffic, the harsh sun, the brutal Nairobi frenzy and impudent customers, Mama Rukia may lumber home with at least Ksh. 500... An amount she meticulously budgets for, from the grains, to the wheat, to any other basic requirements before it all dries up, before she's even sat for a meal.
It's a cruel life. An unforgiving existence and one she passionately hates and wishes she didn't experience so brutally.
Asked about her biggest dream, at this point in her life, old, sickly and constantly weary, Mama Rukia doesn't hesitate: "Ningependa kuhama! Nitoke huku kabisa! Nipate nyumba nzuri haina baridi na iko na stima! Naweza furahi sana!"
As of now, she continues to pull by. Hawking the little wares she can. Attending her hospital appointments dutifully. Raising her two grandchildren dedicatedly, and remaining hopeful, even in the face of pain, despair and vicious hopelessness.
"Mimi sina familia! Hata wale wananijua, wale niliwalea walinitoroka! Ni mimi tu na Mungu. Na hawa watoto wangu..." she whispers, almost tearfully.
As she talks on, tired and frail, her head scarf slowly slides off her head, revealing her beautiful greying hair, silver in color, as if a metaphor of the falling apart of her troubles - and the sign of a brighter day ahead.
"Nisaidieni tu!" she implores. Passionately. Fearfully and, certainly, hopefully.
To donate your time, resources and finances to Mama Rukia, please channel your donations to:
PAYBILL: 4188715
ACCOUNT: MAMA RUKIA
The Quran states: ‘The one who strives for widows and the poor is like the mujahid in the way of Allah, (or) the one who stands in the night prayers and fasts during the day.’ [Bukhari].
We do not just want to help her get a meal for a day, we hope to establish her, take her away from the streets, ease her pain, change her living conditions, repair her home, find her a long-lasting income-generating occupation and help educate her two grandsons.
This is Sadaqah Jariyah for Mama Rukia... May Allah be kind to her.
