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 had just retired to bed after a hard day's work. Shortly before sleep could catch up with me I took my phone to just check if there could have been any messages sent to me during the day and that could have escaped my attention. I was so surprised to find a message from GiveDirectly that I had received money. For a long time I could not sleep. I was so full of joy and happiness in my heart. I could not wait for the next day to come for me to tell my husband of the good news. When morning came, I called my husband and shared the good news with him. He was so much full of joy too and he helped me in planning on how to spend the money thus received.
Describe the biggest difference in your daily life since you started receiving payments from GiveDirectly.
The biggest difference is the house I built. We have always had t her desire to have a better home and the embarrassment of living in a mud house is now a thing of the past. We feel we are part of the people that have made tremendous progress and we couldn't be more proud of ourselves.
What did you spend your most recent transfer(s) on?
I used a bigger percentage of the money received in improving our house. For the longest time, my family was staying in a mud walled house and we had the desire of erecting a better house. When we received the money we bought timber and improved our house to be timber walled. I am happy that the house is now fully complete and we feel so proud to have been able to improve our house like those of other well to do families in our village. Part of the money that remained was used to celebrate Christmas. My children had an opportunity to enjoy Christmas something that they had missed for quite sometime.
Enrolled
access_time over 2 years ago
What does receiving this money mean to you?
With this money, I see my dream of owning a better house made of bricks and iron sheets coming true. This has remained a dream for decades now that our family income is little and not even enough to buy food and family basic needs. I will therefore plan KES 80000 to facilitate this construction. This will give us joy and happiness as we will be having better housing. With the Siongiroi milk plant, milk has been hot cake and in high demand in our area. This gives me the ambition of adding another cow to boost my milk production and lick more cash flow with the sale of milk. As a result of this, I will buy a calf with KES 30000 to put this idea in place.
What is the happiest part of your day?
We have been struggling with our grass-thatched leaking roof kitchen over a long period. This gave us discomfort and guilt that we were unable to provide good housing to our family. Things are no longer the same as my husband managed to build us an iron sheets kitchen. We are now happy that we no longer get frustrated during the rainy season.
What is the biggest hardship you've faced in your life?
I have been struggling to provide food and basic needs to my family, we rely on subsistence farming to provide for the household. The situation worsened since the break out of maize rust which adversely affected maize production in our area. This left us with nothing but to rely on casual jobs to put food on the table. This has not been easy since what we earn from a casual job is about KES 400 daily which is not enough for the family's basic needs.
