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?
It was early in the morning when I received a message alert on my phone. Upon checking its contents, my heart was filled with happiness and I gave thanks to God for leading GiveDirectly to our village and specifically to my household. I knew that I would be able to achieve a lot of things using this money.
Describe the biggest difference in your daily life since you started receiving payments from GiveDirectly.
The biggest difference in my daily life is that I have been able to build a spacious kitchen for my family. Due to this, my family are always clean as we no longer wear clothes full of sooth. Our bedroom is also clean nowadays and spacious unlike before. Also, I now own some assets that I can lean on in case of financial challenges. When they reproduce, I will be able to save the money I would otherwise use in buying milk since I will be milking them. I would not have been able to achieve all this on my own and I thank God for leading GiveDirectly into our lives.
What did you spend your most recent transfer(s) on?
When I received my first transfer, I spent some amount to build a decent kitchen for my family. We settled on this since we did not have any and we were using one side of our bedroom as a kitchen. This always made our clothes have the smell of smoke whenever we wore them. Also, I bought some goats for rearing and so that we can also be getting milk to use in making tea. They are also assets to me that I can lean on in case of financial crisis. I will be selling the offsprings when they start reproducing and use the money to cater for my children's education. I spent the remaining amount to buy enough food to last my family for some time and some decent clothes for everyone in my family.
Enrolled
access_time 4 years ago
What does receiving this money mean to you?
I intend to use $150 of my transfer to build a kitchen, $350 to buy a dairy cow for milking and use the remaining part of my transfer to initiate poutry keeping, a project i have been yearning to set up for long but lack of finances has made it impossible, thanks to GD for making my wish come to pass
What is the happiest part of your day?
Waking up in sound health and feeling strong enough to go looking for jobs to do that would earn me some income to enable me to support the needs of my family at the end of the day is what makes morning the happiest part of my day.
What is the biggest hardship you've faced in your life?
Unguaranteed and unreliable menial jobs that i usually engage myself in eg. Fencing and cultivating people's farms is the biggest hardship i face. Whenever i manage to secure work to do, i latter spend all the wages i earn to buy food for my family. This is the reason why i am lagging behind in terms of setting up income generating activities that would have enabled me to support my family needs with less struggle
