From a manyatta to a self-contained five-bedroom house, Rosemary Gumato is living her dream, and it started with Sh500 savings.
Up until 2019, Rosemary Gumato shared a two-room manyatta with her husband and six children. Now she has a five-bedroom self-contained house thanks to savings from the cash transfer government programme.
Gumato recounted her journey in saving Sh500 from the Sh5,400 cash transfer she has been receiving every two months since 2013, when the Hunger and Safety Net Programme was started.
It is everyone’s dream to have a family and live a successful life despite the economic challenges that differ from region to region.
For those living in the Northern frontier, commonly referred to as the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (Asal) areas, disasters and ethnic conflicts often hinder such dreams.
Most residents suffer during such disasters due to poverty and have for years relied on relief food for survival.
This has been the case for Gumato, 28, a mother of six from Merille town in Marsabit county. The county is currently among those hard hit by the drought disaster in the country.
Hers is a story of grass to grace due to the cash transfer programme, which identifies beneficiaries to be given cash amounting to Sh5,400 monthly as opposed to relief food.
The programme, titled Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP), was initiated by the National Drought Management Authority through donors to try an alternative way of supporting the victims of drought by giving cash directly instead of relief food.
"I am a beneficiary of HSNP, which was launched nine years ago, and I was getting Sh5,400. We began getting the money in 2013. In 2016, we formed a women's group of the beneficiaries, who included 18 out of 24 members who were active," she said.
Nine years later, Gumato and her family have been able to turn the cash into a fortune.
HOW SHE STARTED
We caught up with her at Merille town, which is at the border of Marsabit county and Samburu county, an area that is very dry and amongst the hardest hit by the drought disaster.
Most residents are pastoralists, and during such disaster periods, their livestock dies in large numbers due to lack of pasture.
She has managed to build a five-bedroom modern house for her family, which is nearly complete, and has spent about Sh1.7 million, which enabled her to upgrade from the traditional manyatta.
Apart from the modern house, she is also running a series of businesses in Merille town, which include a butchery, shop and selling goats to Nairobi.
Every week, she transports 300 goats for sale to Nairobi, which has helped transform not only her life but those of the group of local women she is working with.
Gumato said after forming the women's group, they began contributing Sh500 every Tuesday after the market day.
Out of the Sh5,400 cash transfer she received, she used Sh2,400 for shopping, while the remaining Sh3,000 was partly used to buy a goat at the market for sale to buyers from Nairobi.
"I used to get a profit of Sh500 from the goat-selling business and would keep the Sh2,500, spend the profit on food for my family for that week and contribute Sh500 to the women's group," she said.
Since it was a merry-go-round, the cash collected from the Sh500 contribution was given to one person as a loan to use for business that week.
She said if one was given a loan of Sh5,000, they were expected to return with an interest of Sh500 for the group called Nalotwesha Self Help Group.
Gumato said at the end of every year, they would come together and divide the shares collected during the whole year.
She took advantage of the loans and took them as many times as possible as other women feared to take them.
"I always took the loan go to buy stock for my shop, including sugar, and posho (flour), salt and everything that is on-demand, sell it on Tuesday during the market day, then pay the loan and remain with the profit," she said.
The elated mother of three girls and three boys said she also introduced a home banking savings kitty, where she used to keep some of the money got from the shop business being operated by her husband.
BUSINESS EXPANSION
She later opened a butchery, where she sells nyama choma during the market day. Gumato says her butchery business thrives during the market days because that is when businesspeople make money.
After three years of savings, she found out there was enough money, which she used to buy a truck of building blocks at a cost of Sh64,000.
"After one month, I added more cash and bought a second lorry of building blocks and sand and placed them at home," she said.
Gumato said as a group, they were supported and trained by Care Kenya on how to start saving money in the bank individually and as a group.
She started by taking a loan of Sh30,000 and within one year, she was able to qualify to take another loan of Sh500,000.
Out of Sh500,000, she used Sh300,000 to complete the construction of the house, while the remaining Sh200,000 was used to expand her business.
Further, she also began buying goats for sale in Kariobangi, Nairobi, and would buy grills for her house on every trip from the profit she made.
Already, she has bought tiles for her house and is collecting money to do the finishing touch.
"I can proudly call myself a strong woman because it's through efforts and faithfulness with my husband that we have been able to reach where we are today," she said.
Gumato said previously, the relief food which was being supplied to those affected by drought was not of any help as it was little and most people could not move out of poverty.
Now that she is graduating and will no longer benefit from the funding, she is a happy woman and is confident of prospering in life even further with the steps she has taken.
Her husband Phillip Shabarmare attributed their success to the trust between them as no one would misuse the money.
Shabarmare said they have gone through a challenging life until the programme was launched, when they decided to plan for the money wisely.
"We thank God because not everyone who got the money was able to do what we did, but with the little we got, we were utilising it well. With cooperation as a family, it is possible to prosper in life as there would be transparency and vision," he said.
ASSET MULTIPLIER
Marsabit NDMA drought coordinator Farkulo Mustafa said there is a huge difference between the cash transfer and relief food provision.
Speaking to the media in his office, Mustafa said Gumato is a success story of people who have been able to utilise the little money the government has been providing to those affected by drought in the Asals.
Marsabit county borders Ethiopia in the North, Turkana in the West, and Samburu Isiolo Wajir and Mandera in the East. It is more than 77,000 kilometres square.
Mustafa said the main livelihood is livestock production, but some residents in Saku and Moyale subcounties have begun crop production.
The CDC urged Kenyans to utilise the little money they get, save and it will multiply, instead of consuming everything and at the end of the programme, one has nothing to show.
He said the drought is currently at an alarming state as per the drought cycle management and is on a downward trend.
So far, 100,500 people have benefitted from the programme, which is being implemented in eight counties, including four pioneer counties of Mandera, Marsabit, Turkana and Wajir.
"The project has had an impact on the communities, particularly the poor ones. This is because HSNP is actually targeting only the poor households, and the reason we are targeting them is we do not want them to liquidate their assets, which they currently own,” Mustafa said.
The aim is to enable them to get cash to multiply their assets and ensure they exit the programme sustainably. Normally, beneficiaries receive bimonthly cash transfers, which they call unconditional regular cash transfer, of Sh5,400.
The CDC said every cycle, Marsabit receives Sh110,480,400, and that countrywide, they receive Sh570 million in the entire cycle for the four counties.
"If you look at the several cycles we have done, we have paid almost Sh36 billion through HSPN alone. This is a government of Kenya flagship project geared towards supporting the poor households to ensure they are not going to fall back to the institution," he said.
Currently, he said the government plans to expand the programme to reach out to 160,900 people in Marsabit.
This is after an assessment in July reported that those people required humanitarian assistance because of the drought as there would be no rains expected.
“One of the beneficiaries was able to send her child to university through the money issued in form of a cash transfer,” Mustafa said.
“With such initiatives, the government may soon be able to address the challenges faced by poor people in disaster-prone areas that previously relied on relief food.”
Edited by T Jalio
