GiveDirectly: Send money directly to the extreme poor

Newsfeed > Esther's Profile

Esther

Country:

kenya

Occupation:

House construction

Age:

Campaign

Kenya Standard Remote

Upcoming Stage

Next Payment

Follow to be updated on Esther's next check-in.

Initial Payment

Transfer Amount

55000 KES ($439 USD)

2 months ago

Describe the moment when you received your money. How did you feel?

I was outside my house relaxing on the veranda while chatting with my two children. I had completed my daily household chores and was spending time with my kids. At that period my phone was charging inside the house. It was around 5 pm when I checked the phone and discovered that I had received the transfer. I felt very happy about receiving the transfer since I did not have any money in the house to support the family's needs like food.

Describe the biggest difference in your daily life since you started receiving payments from GiveDirectly.

The biggest difference in my life is that I now feel relieved after completing the payment of an acre plot of land that I had bought 3 years ago. Most of the time, the land seller was always bothering my mind since he was frequently demanding payment or reselling the land. Furthermore, I was able to complete the payment of school fees for my children. They are happy to attend their classes without being sent home unlike before.

What did you spend your most recent transfer(s) on?

I spent $100 to support the education of my 4 children who are still in school. I cleared all the fee arrears that they had accrued for more than two terms. In addition, I used $200 to complete the payment of a plot of land that I had bought 3 years ago in our village which I had not completed the payments. Currently, I am happy to be a full landowner. Similarly, I used some of the remaining amounts to make bricks that I will use to construct a new house on the piece of land for business. In addition, the remaining amount assisted me in clearing the water bill of $40 that I have accumulated over time.

Enrolled

5 months ago

What do you plan to do with the cash transfer?

I would love to use this money to solve my biggest challenge. Since the villagers are not able to buy clothes so frequently, I want to increase my scale of operation so that I can be targeting external markets that can help me move my products very fast. My plan is to get several bale's of secondhand clothes and be moving to different markets following market days where I can sell bigger units. This will help me grow my business so that I can comfortably pay school fees for my children from the profit without even having to depend on my husband. Due to low sales, there was a time I even resorted to hawking in the village and giving credits just to sell.

What is the happiest part of your day?

As a farmer, it really feels good to to have adequate rains! We have been that lucky and right from the onset of the previous planting season in April this year, we have been receiving a lot of rains. From my one acre farm, I was able to harvest three sacs of maize. This made me extremely happy because it officially marked the end of two years drought and also having to buy maize flour at the current hiked prices.

What is the biggest hardship you've faced in your life?

I'm a mother of four living in the village with my children while my husband lives and works in Mombasa town as a mason. I have been doing mostly subsistence farming, but also runs a secondhand clothes business on the side. I have been getting food from the farm, but the biggest challenge is on my business; I generate very low sales because most of the people I target from the village have very low economic status. Some times I even sell as low as $2 in a day. This is somehow too little considering that I have four children to pay school fees for. One is in primary boarding school paying $80 per academic term, while the other three are attending a day school paying $15 eachfor the same amount of time