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.
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2nd Payment
Transfer Amount
53150 KES ($463 USD)
access_time over 2 years ago
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How is your life different than it would have been if you never received the transfer?
Since I have been able to achieve our goal of building a more spacious house for the family and buying a dairy cow, it is my wish to start a business. We have four children and two of them will be joining secondary school next year. Due to this, the amount of school fees to be paid will increase and since my spouse has been the one catering for this, I am planning to support him using part of the profits from the business that I will start. I currently do not have funds to facilitate this but I have faith that I will very soon since I currently earn some extra income from the sale of milk. I am planning to save it and later use the money to achieve this goal.
In your opinion, what does GiveDirectly do well, and what does it not do well?
In my own opinion, GiveDirectly did well by giving us financial aid without any discrimination and allowing us to make choices on how to spend it. With this, we were able to spend it to achieve our goals depending on what we needed the most. I do not see anything that it did not do well.
What did you spend your most recent transfer(s) on?
When I heard people from other villages discussing GiveDirectly, I prayed so much that God would lead them to our village so that I would be able to achieve my goal of building a more spacious house. I used to live in a small house that could not accommodate my family comfortably and my children used to sleep at their grandmother's place. My spouse has been working as a livestock broker while I work on our farm and we usually ended up spending everything that we got on our most immediate basic needs. Because of this, we could only hope for a miracle that indeed happened and enabled us to achieve our goals and I will forever remain grateful to GiveDirectly. With my second transfer, I spent KES 30000 building a more spacious house for my family and used the remaining KES 22000 to buy food to last my family for some time and some new clothes for all of my children.
Initial Payment
Transfer Amount
55000 KES ($485 USD)
access_time almost 3 years ago
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Describe the moment when you received your money. How did you feel?
I felt so happy the moment I received money from GD. I was doing normal household chores at that time. I checked my phone and for a moment I couldn't believe my eyes. The first person that I informed was my husband who equally felt happy as we planned to implement our set plans.
Describe the biggest difference in your daily life since you started receiving payments from GiveDirectly.
The biggest difference is that I am living a more stress free life. I now sleep for 8 hours like other people do and my family have clean drinking water because of the tank that we bought. We are so much grateful to GiveDirectly
What did you spend your most recent transfer(s) on?
I used KES 21000 to buy a water tank and used the remaining KES 33000 to buy a dairy cow. The water tank was on top of my priority list since I had suffered for a long time looking for water and having to wake up quite early to go searching for the rare commodity. In most occasions we could hardly have access to clean drinking water and this was really stressing me.
Enrolled
access_time 3 years ago
What does receiving this money mean to you?
Receiving this money will mean that I will expand my business. I am a dairy farmer and sell my milk to Siongiroi Dairy Co-operative Society daily that pays me KES 5000 a month. I want to add another cow with KES 40,000 from the transfer so that I can boost the income that I get from selling milk. I plan to pay school fees for my two older children in class seven because this has been a problem to me since the money that I get cannot feed and support me in other things like buying food for my family.
What is the happiest part of your day?
For the last six months, I have been able to sell milk to the society on a daily basis and get to earn something. Getting money from this has brought me joy since I am assured that my children cannot sleep hungry and I am able to meet some of their needs.
What is the biggest hardship you've faced in your life?
The challenge that I am facing now is insufficient source of income. I rely on selling milk so that I can feed and educate my children and also to support my ailing mother. This has put a strain on me because the money that I earn cannot sustain us. School has also become expensive and I cannot afford to fees for my children at once.
