We check in with people at each stage of the cash transfer process to see how things are going. Take a look at some of their stories as they appear here in real-time.
Learn more about how recipients opt in to share their stories.
Describe the moment when you received your money. How did you feel?
I was just waiting to take breakfast when I received a message and confirmed it that its was a message informing me that I had indeed received the transfers. I was so happy and immediately knew that the idea of building a new house would actually come to fruition.
Describe the biggest difference in your daily life since you started receiving payments from GiveDirectly.
I have been living in my current house; the mud walled and grass thatched house for ages. It was already old and leaking and I had already thought of building a new one but I did not have any resources to help me do this. Knowing that I will soon move in to a new irony roofed house is the biggest difference in my life. I am also happy that I have one additional cow into the stock that I currently have.
What did you spend your most recent transfer(s) on?
I spent some portion of the transfer to buy building materials for my house. I currently live in a old grass thatched and mud-walled house which apart from being old, maintaining it is quite labor intensive. I also bought a young cow for rearing and spent the rest to buy food and other household necessities.
Enrolled
access_time 4 years ago
What does receiving this money mean to you?
We have been aspiring to build a better house for our family. We are currently sleeping under one roof with our goats and it is not hygienically good for us. Our plan is to spend approximately 300 USD to build an iron sheet roofed house and the remaining 250 USD, we use it to buy food and goat since we have food shortage in our household. Receiving this money therefore mean our family will have an improved housing unit.
What is the happiest part of your day?
The happiest part of my day is the evening. My day starts at around 3 am in the morning where I trek to a far village of approximately 20 km to work as a casual laborer (such as weeding, harvesting, among other jobs). I will work up to around 4 pm after being paid, I start my journey back home which will take approximately 3.5 hours. Its only in the evening I feel relieved and relaxed after the day's work and after coming home with food for my family.
What is the biggest hardship you've faced in your life?
The biggest hardship we have faced in life is lack of finance to build a new house for my family and educate my two school going children (one in standard 1 and the other in standard 8). We are a family of 4 members living a small house which is hardly enough to accommodate the entire family. As peasant famers, our land under cultivation is 0.8 of an acre and we hardly harvest enough produce to sustain the entire family forcing us to opt for casual labour which we earn 2.80 usd a day.
