Village Voices: Miriam sees end to stigma with Kenya’s Inua Jamii pension
Our Village Voices series shares research findings into Kenya’s Inua Jamii Senior Citizens’ pension scheme and what it means to one Rift Valley community. In this blog, Sarina Kidd discusses the experiences of a recipient of the Older Persons Cash Transfer.
Miriam is seen as one of the lucky ones in the community of Lokeringet, in Nandi County. For the last three years she has been a beneficiary of the Older Persons Cash Transfer (OPCT) programme, a 2,000 Shilling (around USD $20) transfer targeted at the poorest older persons in Kenya.
In Lolkeringet community, only nine people out of around 100 older people qualify for the programme and the inclusion of Miriam hasn’t gone without complaint. Other elderly villagers couldn’t understand why they hadn’t qualified for the scheme too. They too were poor, weren’t they? Miriam didn’t seem so different to them – how could a government official decide that she was more deserving?
Read more: Development Pathways UK
