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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Initial Payment
Transfer Amount
55000 KES
access_time over 2 years ago
attach_money
Describe the moment when you received your money. How did you feel?
I felt so happy the moment I received money from GiveDirectly. It was around 8:00 pm when I heard my phone ring. I asked one of my children to check and when he confirmed that it was a message from GiveDirectly, we broke into a celebration mood as a family. Never before had I received such huge amount of money before.
Describe the biggest difference in your daily life since you started receiving payments from GiveDirectly.
The biggest difference in my daily life is the investments that I have made. Having bought a dairy cow has meant that I will no longer have to use money to buy milk here at home and at the same time I can sell the surplus to make ends meet by meeting other needs of my family.
What did you spend your most recent transfer(s) on?
We used KES 35000 to buy a dairy cow and used the remaining amount to buy iron sheets for constructing a house and the remaining amount was used to buy basic household needs for my family. Without GD we would have relied on subsistence farming to get the money needed which means we would have had to wait a little longer before we could accomplish things like construction of a new house or purchasing of a dairy cow. I still have two more children under my care and whom I pay school fees for. I am so grateful that GiveDirectly came in handy for us to be able to realize our dreams which would have remained deferred until such a time that we received money from alternative sources.
Enrolled
access_time over 2 years ago
What does receiving this money mean to you?
This is a big relief to me because my last born child just finished his college studies and it has been an uphill task to pay his school fees. I had already successfully paid school fee for his other 3 siblings. This made me sell all the cows I had in this compound and that's what we depend on to earn a living. The quality of life we are currently living has been affected so much because we have no livestock at all and it forces us to look for casual jobs in the village and it bothers me so much. Cultivation of crops is no longer fruitful because of emerging crop diseases and it has rendered the cultivation useless. We would like to spend this transfers therefore to restore a meaningful source of income through sale of milk. We will therefore use all the transfers to buy 3 grade cows and this will help us a great deal.
What is the happiest part of your day?
I was happy last December when my last born son completed his college studies. It gives me so much joy because am no longer obligated to pay school fees which has been a very hard task for me.
What is the biggest hardship you've faced in your life?
I feel that my body has grown weak suddenly and we cannot depend on hard labor to earn an income, my husband also feels the same but circumstances have been forcing us to go ahead and look for casual jobs lest we sleep hungry. It is so challenging and I wish we could do anything different like keeping a herd of cows as we used to before we sold everything for school fees. We are however hopeful that since you have enrolled us in the cash program we shall soon be back on track.
