Getrude Indondolo Musambai

Getrudah Indondolo Musambai was born on January 1, 1952, in Khayega, Kakamega County.

Her childhood was marked by hardship as she was only able to attend school up to Standard Four. She was forced to drop out because her family lacked the funds for school fees and she was needed at home to care for her ailing parents.

After her parents passed away, she worked as a manual laborer, tilling the land for others to earn enough food to survive. She eventually married and settled in Bukhulunya, but the stability of her marriage faded when her husband took four other wives.

Together they had five children, but the family faced many trials, and she has since lost four of her children. Life at home became increasingly difficult as her husband abandoned his responsibilities, eventually giving away her only source of sustenance—her farming land—to children from his other marriages.

This left Getrudah with no land to grow crops, forcing her to rely on washing clothes for neighbors to try and feed her two grandchildren.

The struggle for food was constant until the local chief took notice of her dire living conditions and introduced her to Mama Ibado Charity. Through this program, her life has changed significantly as she now receives regular supplies of milk, sugar, rice, cooking oil, tea leaves, salt, and flour for ugali and porridge.

Beyond the nutritional support, Getrudah receives vital medical assistance for her chronic health conditions. She suffers from high blood pressure and ulcers, and frequently battles malaria and typhoid. To manage these illnesses, she visits the clinic every Thursday for a regular health check-up and treatment, which has given her renewed strength.

She is deeply grateful for this intervention, as the support from Mama Ibado Charity has provided her with a lifeline she could not find elsewhere. Getrudah remains in urgent need of continued help because she is an elderly woman living in a collapsing shanty house that leaks during the rain.

With no land of her own and the responsibility of raising two young grandchildren on a meager and unreliable income, she cannot afford the specialized care or the safe shelter required for a woman of her age.