DOB – June 6, 2002

Came under Tumaini care in 2015

There was not a bite of food . . . mom was so sick she couldn’t walk and we had to have her assisted to a hospital.  It turned out Mom (HIV+) had a TB tumour growing in her stomach and required immediate surgery.

Tumaini got the surgery for mom, rented a house and put all the school aged children into school.  Mom would convalesce for a couple of months afterward, then began disappearing in the night; as the “big sister” of the family, Hadija was left home alone to care for everyone.

About six months after mom’s surgery, one day, Hussein (we had put Hadija into boarding school) brought the younger children to Tumaini along with the keys to their house and informed us that mom had ridden away the night before with her mattress, on the back of a piki piki.

Hadija is a “marshmallow”… sweet and gentle, and she just melts when you tell her how beautiful she is … and she IS!  Simply put, Hadija is just a lovely human being.  She has an almost maternal quality to her, which probably stems from having been a mother-figure to younger siblings Hussein, Swalehe, Malki, Rukaya and Sumaya, who are all with us at Tumaini.  She can be quiet and bubbly, but she has a sassy sense of humour and loves to make people laugh!  Hadija works hard in school and performs well on her exams.