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.
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2nd Payment
Transfer Amount
53150 KES ($428 USD)
access_time almost 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 am no longer receiving this money, I have planned my self because I don't want to see my family suffer. I am planning to do large scale maize farming so that I can sell the maize and earn some income to pay school fees for my children and pay some other family bills.
In your opinion, what does GiveDirectly do well, and what does it not do well?
In my own opinion, what GiveDirectly does well is doing follow up after every transfer, even though the transfers are unconditional, no one will waste the money in activities like alcohol drinking because they know they should be accountable on what the spend the money on.
What did you spend your most recent transfer(s) on?
Since I don't have a reliable job, my biggest desire has to have two dairy cows so that I can sell milk and boost my income. However, I have not been able to fulfil my desire because of financial incapability. When I was enrolled in the program, I saw this as a good opportunity to achieve my goals. I spend $270 of my second transfer to buy dairy calf, $40 to buy iron sheets and the balance to buy food and clothes for my family. I am grateful to GiveDirectly for making it possible for me to achieve my dreams because I now have two dairy cows and I will be earning income from selling milk by next year.
Initial Payment
Transfer Amount
55000 KES ($468 USD)
access_time over 2 years ago
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Describe the moment when you received your money. How did you feel?
It was around 5:30 pm and I was at home shelling maize by hand with my wife when suddenly my phone rang. It was my neighbor calling to ask if I had seen any new message on my phone bearing good news. I told him, no but when we were done talking, I got a new message. I hurriedly opened it since I had now become curious and eager to know what was going on. My wife and I were surprised when we read the SMS which was saying that we had received KES 55000 from GiveDirectly. We were so happy that we left whatever we were doing and we celebrated giving thanks to God for the blessing.
Describe the biggest difference in your daily life since you started receiving payments from GiveDirectly.
The transfer has brought a big difference in our lives as a family. Our size of land has increased and we now have somewhere where we can till and plant crops for subsistence use. The calf that we bought is also going to be of great help to us in the future when it will have matured and calved. We will be able to get milk for our consumption and sale. The children on the other hand are also extremely happy because they got new clothes to wear.
What did you spend your most recent transfer(s) on?
Before we got our recent transfer, we had already made plans to buy a cow with part of it. We, however, did not follow our plan since we got the news that our neighbor was selling a point of an acre piece of land, at KES 30000 that is adjacent to ours. We thus decided to buy it since the one that we owned was small in size. We also bought a calf at KES 10000. The calf is our future investment and it is going to help a lot when it will have matured and calved. Other than that, we also paid off a debt with KES 3000, and with the remaining transfer amount, we spent on buying clothes for ourselves and our two children. We are hence so much grateful to GiveDirectly for their big support. May God bless you.
Enrolled
access_time over 2 years ago
What does receiving this money mean to you?
I recently completed building a 24 iron sheet roofed house. It has taken me 4 years to complete it because I never had enough money to work on it up to its completion. It had stalled for a long time. I have put in a lot of hard work to raise the money and the effort finally paid off last month when I was able to complete the remaining work. I was pondering where to get money to furnish my new house with chairs, tables, and fittings. Give Directly came at the right time, I am now certain of owning a fully furnished house, I am so elated, the timing is so perfect. I intend to use KES 20000 to buy furniture and use the rest of the money to buy a dairy cow.
What is the happiest part of your day?
Last year August we had a bumper harvest of maize yields. We managed to harvest 10 bags of maize in a farm I had leased in Nusu Mile in the nearby Narok County. I sold 5 bags of maize and remained with another 5 for household consumption. We were overjoyed since maize productivity had been a thing of the past for some time after the outbreak of lethal maize necrosis disease.
What is the biggest hardship you've faced in your life?
Financial constraint is a major challenge that we undergo. I used to work at Uniliver Tea estate in Kericho as a tea plucker employed on casual terms, but due to the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, we were laid off and had to come back home. Life has hit me and my family very hard. That was the genesis of my problems. Our lives used to be good but now we live a miserable life, life is so hard that putting even food on the table is a problem.
