"Nilikua hapo": Meet Kenyan woman doing haircuts, care to mental health patients
This story has significance for readers across Kenya and beyond.
- Sheila Lugaliki, 35, founded Uniquely Gifted Organisation in 2023 after her own stay at Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital
- Her programme at Mathari offers haircuts and personal care to patients, aiming to restore self-worth alongside clinical treatment
- Sheila hopes the dignity-centred model will eventually spread to other public mental health facilities across Kenya
Elijah Ntongai is an experienced editor at TUKO.co.ke, with more than four years in financial, business, labour and technology research and reporting. His work provides valuable insights into Kenyan, African, and global trends.
A Nairobi woman who once received care at Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital is now returning to its wards, not as a patient, but as an advocate armed with scissors, combs and a mission to restore dignity to those still on the inside.
Sheila Lugaliki, 35, is the founder of Uniquely Gifted Organisation, a community-based group she established in 2023 to support people living with mental illness beyond the point of diagnosis and medication.
In an exclusive interview with TUKO.co.ke, she explained what drives her work and why something as straightforward as a haircut can carry profound meaning inside a psychiatric facility.
"I founded Uniquely Gifted in 2023 with the belief that people living with mental illness deserve more than treatment alone. They deserve dignity, compassion, meaningful support and opportunities to rebuild their lives and reconnect with who they are beyond their diagnosis.
My work is deeply informed by lived experience, having personally experienced mental-health challenges and received care at Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital, I understand both the clinical side of mental healthcare and the human experience of being a patient," she said.
Why a Haircut Can Change Everything
When a person is admitted to a psychiatric ward, clinical stabilisation quite rightly takes centre stage. But Sheila argues that in focusing entirely on symptoms, facilities can unintentionally strip patients of something equally important: their sense of self.
"Simple acts such as having one's hair done, getting a haircut, receiving personal-care items or simply being treated with care can communicate an important message: you are still a person, you are still worthy, and you still matter," she told TUKO.co.ke.
Her Wellness and Dignity programme at Mathari began with personal care for women and has since expanded to include male patients.
"The initiative is deeply connected to my own lived experience. I spent time at Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital during my own mental-health journey, and that experience gave me a different perspective of what people in psychiatric facilities go through. What began as care for women gradually expanded, including personal care services for men. It has now become part of Uniquely Gifted's broader Wellness and Dignity program at Mathari," she added.
Sheila partners with beauty schools and barbershops, bringing in hired professionals and volunteers on session days to carry out the work.
What she has witnessed in the wards goes well beyond physical change. Withdrawn patients begin engaging with volunteers. People who arrive silent leave smiling, talking and visibly more at ease.
The personal care sessions, she explains, create space for warm, non-judgemental conversation that clinical appointments rarely allow.
A Vision That Extends Beyond Mathari
Sheila is also the secretary of the Kenyan chapter of the ASPA, an association that works to prevent self-harm, where she works with stakeholders to build formal structures around self-harm response and prevention across the country.
Her broader ambition for Uniquely Gifted is to demonstrate that dignity-centred care is not a luxury reserved for private facilities.
She wants to see the personal beauty care model replicated in other public mental health institutions, proving that community-driven interventions can complement clinical care without requiring vast resources.
"A mental-health diagnosis should never take away a person's dignity," she said. "Self care may seem like a small intervention, but sometimes a small act of care can remind someone that they are still seen, still valued and still worthy of being cared for."
Her hope is that hospitals, healthcare professionals, corporates and community members will eventually join hands to make this kind of care a standard feature of mental health recovery in Kenya, not an occasional gesture, but an expectation.
Source: TUKO.co.ke
Reporting originally appeared via TUKO. Read the full source for additional context.