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Kenya: How Cash Grants Empower People Living With Disabilities

Published

4 years ago

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Ikran is eight years old. She lives with her family in Barwako, 3km from Wajir town, capital of one of Kenya’s poorest counties – the country is grappling with hunger caused by the severe drought in the Horn of Africa.

She receives a disability allowance that allows her mother, Halima, to buy her the foods that suit her needs best.

The disability cash transfer programme is a social protection intervention by the County Government of Wajir that is supported by the World Food Programme (WFP). It aims at boosting income security and improving the well-being of people with disabilities and their families.

Ikran, her twin brother, Hassan, and their seven siblings, live in 3.6 metre squared Somali hut known as an aqal.

Ikran is quadriplegic and Adan, her older brother, is also disabled. To support her children, and her retired husband too, Halima, makes and sells mandazi – a doughnuts in the school canteen. She also runs a small kiosk next to her hut.

Her days – a flurry of caregiving and income generation activities – start at 4 a.m. She checks up on Ikran and Adan, prepares breakfast, and mandazi – a popular fried dough snack – for sale, ahead of opening the kiosk.

“Before disability cash transfers, life was very stressful,” she says. “Feeding a large family of nine children, two of whom that need 24-hour care on a meagre income was very challenging”.

Ikran started receiving the cash transfers from 2015. But that stopped in 2017 when the lack of laws to back up the annual budget for the disability fund led to its suspension.