How To Buy A Goat When You're Really Poor? Join A 'Merry-Go-Round'
Skeptics say if you hand cash to the impoverished, they'll mismanage it. But it turns out, many poor people are great at saving — thanks to this ingenious system.
Mary Abagi is a 63-year-old widow who has spent most of her life eking out a living by growing crops on a tiny plot of land in her Kenyan village. Then, last fall, Abagi learned that the village had been picked for an unusual experiment that promised to change her life.
An American charity called GiveDirectly is giving every adult in the village $22 every month for the next 12 years. Abagi's first thought: "I will save the money to buy a goat." And to do that, Abagi has turned to a special kind of savings club the villagers call a "merry-go-round."
Abagi's club has 10 members — almost all older women like her. Every month, almost as soon as they get their payment from GiveDirectly, the members meet to put
