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 8 am and I was at home having breakfast when suddenly my phone rang notifying me that I had a new message. I stopped to check it and I was pleasantly surprised when I read the SMS and I learned that I had received KES 55000 that GiveDirectly had promised us. I was so happy and I immediately called my husband who was away at work and I informed him about what had transpired. He was so happy and we thanked God for it. It was soon after I had received the transfer that I started hearing other people in the neighborhood celebrating and saying that they had received the transfers too. That day was certainly the happiest in our village.
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. This is because having bought a lactating cow, we no longer incur the cost of buying milk like before. We also have enough utensils for our use and the children are happy because they got new clothes to wear.
What did you spend your most recent transfer(s) on?
We spent KES 38000 of our recent transfer on buying a cow. We decided to buy the cow because we didn't have one before. We used to incur the cost of buying milk every day and we use to buy a liter at KES 40. It has always been our wish to own a cow but we didn't have the money to buy one. I usually engage in doing casual work to earn a living while my husband is casually employed as a security guard. The money that we make from our hustles is not much, it is usually only enough to buy food and some essential household items such as sugar, soap, salt, etc. Other than that, we spent some amount buying chickens for rearing. We had some that we used to rear but unfortunately, they got attacked by some disease and they died. We hence decided to buy others because the chickens were of great help to us. I use to sell the eggs and get money for buying the essential household items. We also spent some money on tilling our land and planting maize. We also bought some utensils that were missing in our household and some clothes for the children. We saved the remaining amount so that we could use it whenever we are faced with an emergency. We are thus grateful to GiveDirectly for their support.
Enrolled
access_time over 2 years ago
What does receiving this money mean to you?
I desire to build a spacious house because the one that I currently live in is small. I cook and sleep in the same room and since I use firewood, the entire house is full of soot that comes from the smoke that emanates from the fireplace. It is hard to even catch sleep due to irritation caused by the smoke and this has been a constant source of stress. I work as a casual laborer doing menial jobs in people's farms to earn a living. On a good day, I get KES 200, and since I live from hand to mouth all of this money is spent on buying food for my family. I plan to use KES 22000 to build a house that is spacious enough and convert the one that I currently live in to be the kitchen. Receiving this money will enable me to build a house that is comfortable for my family to sleep in.
What is the happiest part of your day?
The fact that it is heavily raining in this area makes me happy. It rarely rains and this always force us to cover a distance of 2kilometers looking for water.
What is the biggest hardship you've faced in your life?
I got married at a tender age and that came with a fair share of challenges, financial constraints being the major one. Immediately I got married in the year 2020, my husband left for Nairobi to look for a job. He comes home twice a year and rarely sends money for upkeep. This has forced me to painfully fend for my child singlehandedly. I do menial jobs such as being a domestic servant and this earns me KES 100 per day. This is not even enough to buy food leave alone clothes for my 2-year old son.
