From Flight to Fight: Ramla Ali’s return to Kenya turns advocacy into action
A champion steps back into a familiar story
- Advertisement -
On a bright morning in Nairobi’s Dandora neighborhood, Ramla Ali pulled on gloves—this time not for sparring, but to sort plastic and cardboard alongside dozens of women in a community recycling yard. The Somali-born boxer, model, and UNICEF ambassador moved quickly along the line, measuring, weighing, and bagging materials that would help turn a day’s work into a day’s pay for refugee mothers. Kids watched from a nearby corner where a makeshift classroom doubled as a childcare hub.
For Ali, the scene was jarringly close to the life she once fled. She left Somalia as a child after her brother was killed during the civil war, spent roughly a year in Kenya, then grew up in London—where, as a teenager, she found boxing and discovered the confidence and community that would carry her to global platforms. In 2020, she became the first boxer to represent Somalia at the Olympics, a breakthrough that resonated far beyond sport. Now, at one of the world’s largest refugee complexes and in Nairobi’s migrant communities, her visit felt less like outreach and more like returning to a road not taken.
Recycling livelihoods and dignity
At the Kasarani Sasa recycling group, most of the workers are refugee women. Their day is part grit, part logistics: plastic and paper separated by type, value tallied, safety kept by numbers. A volunteer watches toddlers, a facilitator runs short literacy and numeracy sessions, and a supervisor ensures the women are paid. The model is simple—income and childcare under the same corrugated roof—and it is exactly the sort of low-cost, high-impact program that often gets squeezed first when funding thins.
Ali moved between stations asking how much the bales fetch, where shipments are sold, what breaks the cycle of dependency. She lingered over the childcare corner, listening as mothers described choices that feel like ultimatums: buy food or pay rent; keep a child in class or bring them to collect scrap. The boxer has said often that she recognizes the thin margins that separate one family’s chance from another’s hardship. In Dandora, that line felt painfully visible.
In Dadaab, a classroom full of futures
From Nairobi, Ali traveled north to Dadaab, the sprawling network of camps near the Somali border that has sheltered generations of people escaping conflict, drought, and economic free fall. Aid groups here carry out the daily work of stability: water points, clinics, schools, and livelihoods training. Among them is FilmAid Kenya, where young refugees learn basics of filmmaking—camera handling, editing, storytelling—and practice the confidence that comes with having both voice and audience.
In a cinderblock classroom, Ali shared her path: the shy girl bullied in secondary school; the teenager who stepped into a boxing gym and found her footing; the young woman who kept training even when money was tight and expectations lower still. She spoke about education as the lever that made the rest possible, urging students to treat learning as both a shield and a bridge. Girls told her they want to be doctors, nurses, psychologists—a roll call of professions that sound like promises to their families as much as they are aspirations. One 15-year-old described how picking up a camera for the first time changed the way she saw her world; she now dreams of directing films that show camp life with dignity and light.
Ali nodded along, then reminded the class of a reality that shadows every hopeful sentence: programs like this depend on budgets made oceans away. If the money stops, the cameras and the lessons and the safe rooms can vanish, and with them a disciplined place to put one’s hopes.
Why visibility matters
Ali’s career has been a study in firsts—national titles in England and Great Britain, the African Zone Featherweight Crown in 2019, and a flag on her Olympic vest that carried centuries of Somali resilience into a global arena. She often says that representation unlocks possibility: when a young person can see a path, they are more likely to walk it. In Dadaab, visibility looks like a woman in boxing shoes sitting at the back of a classroom, listening to students debate shot composition. It looks like a Somali athlete, once a refugee herself, returning to a country that sheltered her to remind others that dreams are not the privilege of the settled.
Fighting beyond the ropes
Ali’s advocacy is not limited to visits and speeches. Since 2018 she has worked with UNICEF to elevate the needs of displaced children and push for girls’ education. She also founded the Ramla Ali Sisters Club, a nonprofit that began with a single weekly class she taught while juggling multiple jobs. The idea was simple: provide free, women-only boxing and fitness sessions in spaces where those who often feel excluded—survivors of domestic abuse, Muslim women seeking privacy, women with limited means—can train without judgment. That one class has grown into clubs in cities including London, New York, and parts of Florida, proof that access can be scaled when someone decides to open a door and keep it open.
Between high-profile bouts and community work, she continues to use her public life to point toward the less visible one—where a steady hand on a focus ring or a mother’s wages from sorted plastic can tilt a family’s future.
Fragile lifelines, urgent choices
Dadaab’s long history runs parallel to the story of repeated shocks in the Horn of Africa—conflict, climate-driven drought, and economic strain. Aid workers now describe a familiar dilemma: more needs, fewer resources. Cuts to global assistance ripple quickly through camp economies. Classrooms shrink, stipend programs stall, protective spaces for girls close or cut hours. The risk, as Ali underscored in her conversations, is not just lost services but lost momentum. When a girl loses a year of school, the consequences compound—early marriage becomes more likely, health outcomes worsen, and generational poverty sinks in deeper.
That is why relatively small investments—camera kits for a film lab, wages for childcare workers at a recycling yard, transport stipends for girls to attend class—carry outsized returns. They take abstract values like dignity and translate them into daily routine: a safe walk to school, an hour at a gym, a certificate that opens the next door.
The long arc of return
Standing in Kenya, the country that once held her family in an uncertain pause, Ali confronted a past that feels both close and distant. She knows she was lucky: a resettlement place, a school that welcomed her, a sport that demanded everything and then gave back more. But luck is too thin to be a policy. Her message—delivered with sweat in Dandora, with stories in Dadaab, with mitts on in gyms from London to New York—is that opportunity should not hinge on the accident of birthplace or the good fortune of a single helping hand.
Back in the ring, Ali remains a draw: a disciplined technician who can sell out a media workout and then spend the next day in a refugee classroom speaking softly about study and stamina. The through line is service. She often repeats a credo that guides her life: the measure of a champion is not only the belts collected but the lives nudged onto firmer ground.
On this visit, that ground looked like neat stacks of pressed plastic, a circle of girls critiquing a rough cut, and the quiet conviction that even in places built to be temporary, hope can be made durable. The road from refugee to role model is not a straight line, but Ali’s footsteps—back to Kenya, back to the work—show how it can be walked.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
Ramla Ali poses for photo with refugees at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. UNICEF
Somali-born boxer Ramla Ali has spent her life fighting — first for survival, then for change. From escaping Somalia’s civil war to stepping into the Olympic ring, she’s turned her own story of struggle into a powerful mission to uplift others.
Now, the boxer, model, and UNICEF ambassador is using her platform to advocate for displaced people and girls’ education. Her latest journey took her to Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp, one of the largest in the world.
From refugee to role model
Ali fled Somalia with her family after her brother was killed during the civil war. They spent about a year in Kenya before resettling in London, where Ali discovered boxing as a teenager. What began as a way to gain confidence and escape bullying became a lifelong calling.
“I was a young girl, bullied in secondary school,” she told CNN. “Boxing was a space where I could make friends. I was gaining confidence as my body changed, and I was getting healthier. That’s what I loved most — and over time it became something I wanted to master.”
Her rise was extraordinary. Ali won England’s national and Great British titles and claimed the 2019 African Zone Featherweight Crown as an amateur boxer. In 2020, she made history as the first boxer to represent Somalia at the Olympics, in Tokyo — becoming a symbol of resilience and representation.
“You can’t be what you can’t see,” Ali said. “If people can see me doing it, then maybe they’ll believe they can too.”
“This could have been me”
In September, Ali’s path came full circle when she returned to Kenya with UNICEF and the Danish Refugee Council, visiting communities in Nairobi’s Dandora and Eastleigh neighborhoods and later traveling north to Dadaab.
There, she met girls, mothers, and teachers working to build better futures despite dwindling aid. For Ali, the experience was an emotional reminder of what could have been.
“Had I not left Kenya, this could have been me,” she said. “It’s humbling to see how these women are doing everything they can to give their kids a chance.”
At the Kasarani Sasa recycling group in Dandora, a collective of more than 200 waste pickers — mostly refugee women — Ali joined in with the work, helping to sort and weigh plastic and cardboard. The program provides childcare and informal education for their children while offering mothers a safe way to earn an income.
“You always think about these things, but when you see it firsthand, it’s different,” Ali said. “If we hadn’t left Kenya, this could have been my mum in this situation. It’s heartbreaking, because you want to help everyone — but there are so many.”
Every dream matters
At FilmAid Kenya, a creative learning program in Dadaab that teaches filmmaking and storytelling to young refugees, Ali shared her own story with students. Many of the girls, she said, had dreams of becoming doctors, nurses, or psychologists — despite the challenges of growing up in a camp.
“It was really important for me to tell them how education changed my life,” she said. “Even in an environment like this, they’re still hopeful and determined to achieve their dreams. Every dream matters.”
Ramla Ali works out for fans and media at The Oculus at Westfield World Trade Center on July 8, 2025 in New York City. Ed Mulholland/Getty Images
Ali was especially moved by a 15-year-old student who told her that before FilmAid, she had never touched a camera, but now she dreams of becoming a film director.
“It’s amazing to see how access to something as simple as a camera can change how a young person sees the world,” Ali said. “These are the opportunities that keep hope alive.”
But with global aid cuts threatening programs, she worries for their future.
“If funding disappears, classrooms like these might not exist anymore,” Ali said. “It’s devastating, because these programs are lifelines. They give children a reason to dream.”
Fighting for change beyond the ring
For Ali, giving back isn’t an afterthought; it’s central to who she is. Since 2018, she has served as a UNICEF ambassador, visiting refugee communities and supporting programs for children’s education and gender equality.
She also runs the Ramla Ali Sisters Club, a nonprofit that offers free boxing and fitness sessions for women who might otherwise be excluded from sport — including survivors of domestic abuse, Muslim women seeking women-only spaces, and those from low-income backgrounds.
“Sisters Club started with me donating an hour a week,” she said. “I had three jobs at the time, but I wanted to create a safe space for women who had nowhere else to go.”
What began as a single class has since expanded to multiple clubs in cities like London, New York, and Florida.
“For everything I do in the ring, I want to be remembered for what I do outside of it,” Ali said.
“The service you provide to others is the rent you pay on this Earth.”
Hope that endures
Standing in the same country that once sheltered her, Ali reflected on how far she’s come and how much still needs to be done.
“This trip was personal,” she said. “It reminded me that I was once in their situation. And if my story can show even one young girl that there’s hope, then it’s all worth it.”
From refugee to role model, athlete to advocate, Ali continues to prove that true strength isn’t measured in victories — but in the lives you uplift along the way.
