💵 “They Gave $500 to Every Poor Person — What Happened Next Shocked the World!” - video Dailymotion

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In 2018, a non-profit did something unbelievable — it gave every adult in a poor Kenyan village $500, no rules, no conditions. Everyone expected it to fail. But two years later… what happened shocked the world.  Business grew. Families thrived. Children did better in school.  This true story from Ahenyo, Kenya proves that sometimes, the best way to fight poverty is to trust people with money.  Watch till the end — this $500 experiment might just change how you see the world.  💬 What would YOU do if you got $500 for free?

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00:00Imagine someone gives you $500, no rules, no conditions, no expectations.

00:06Just one instruction. Spend it however you think is best. What would you do?

00:12Most people might say, I spend it quickly, and in a few months it'd be gone.

00:18That's exactly what the world's biggest charities used to believe too.

00:22They thought poor people couldn't handle money wisely.

00:25But in 2018, something happened in a small Kenyan village called Ahenyo that shocked economists, charities, and philanthropists around the world.

00:35It was an experiment that would change how we think about poverty forever.

00:40Chapter 1. The Experiment in 2018

00:43A non-profit organization decided to give every adult in Ahenyo village $500, no conditions attached.

00:51For people who had lived in extreme poverty for generations, $500 wasn't just money, it was nearly an entire year's income.

01:00No one believed it would work.

01:02After all, decades of well-planned aid programs had failed miserably.

01:08Billions had been spent on education projects, job training, agriculture, infrastructure, and health initiatives.

01:15Yet, when economists ran real studies, randomized control trials, the results were disappointing.

01:23School supplies didn't improve learning, job training didn't increase income.

01:28Even microfinance, the revolutionary idea of small loans for entrepreneurs, didn't make people richer, though they repaid loans faithfully.

01:37Every big idea seemed to fail.

01:39Chapter 2. The Crazy Idea Then Came a Radical Thought

01:43What if we just gave people money, directly?

01:46No strings attached.

01:48No lectures.

01:49No experts telling them what to do.

01:52Most philanthropists laughed.

01:54This will never work, they said.

01:57People will waste it.

01:58But a few bold researchers decided to test it anyway, and Ahenyo became the center of the world's most daring social experiment.

02:08Chapter 3. Two years later

02:09Two years later, researchers returned to the village expecting chaos.

02:14Instead, what they found was nothing short of a miracle.

02:18Business revenues had grown by 65%.

02:21Families had savings for the first time.

02:24Children were eating better, performing better in school, and smiling more.

02:28Depression, domestic violence, and inequality had dropped dramatically.

02:34People had used the money wisely, fixing homes, buying livestock, opening small shops, paying school fees.

02:41Every person made their own decision about what mattered most, and that freedom made all the difference.

02:48Chapter 4. The Ripple Effect

02:50But Ahenyo wasn't the only success story.

02:53When researchers studied hundreds of other Kenyan villages with similar programs, they found something even more extraordinary.

03:01The entire local economy had grown twice as much as the total money given out.

03:06Meaning, when one person gets cash, everyone benefits.

03:10Shopkeepers, farmers, teachers, all earn more.

03:14The money circulates, creating a wave of prosperity.

03:17Chapter 5. The Long Game, of course, is not a perfect or permanent solution.

03:24In Uganda, a similar cash transfer study that began in 2008 showed an interesting pattern.

03:31For the first four years, families' earnings grew.

03:34Then, the effect disappeared for a few years.

03:38But during the COVID-19 pandemic, the effect came back again.

03:42So cash giving isn't a magic cure, it's a human solution.

03:46It works best when people have hope, opportunity, and trust.

03:51Chapter 6. The Real Lesson

03:53The biggest lesson from all this?

03:56Poor people aren't helpless.

03:58They're experts in their own lives.

04:00Traditional aid assumes that outsiders know best.

04:04But cash giving flips that idea on its head.

04:07It says, the people living in poverty know what they need to escape it.

04:11For one person, repairing their home might be the smartest investment.

04:14For another, paying school fees to create long-term success.

04:19And, for someone else, starting a tiny shop might be the key.

04:23There's no one-size-fits-all solution.

04:26But giving people the freedom to choose works better than telling them what to do.

04:31Chapter 7. Can We End Poverty?

04:33Today, rich countries spend about $200 billion every year on international aid.

04:40And private philanthropists have over $1.5 trillion sitting in their foundations.

04:46If even a small fraction of that went directly into the hands of people who need it,

04:51we could actually eliminate extreme poverty.

04:54We already have the resources.

04:56What we lack is trust.

04:58Chapter 8. The Message The Ehenyo Experiment wasn't just about giving money.

05:03It was about giving people agency, dignity, and hope.

05:07It proved that sometimes, the most powerful way to fight poverty ISNT by building programs

05:13or creating complex systems, but by believing in people.

05:17Maybe the simplest idea of all, that people can help themselves if you just give them the chance,

05:23will end up changing the world.

05:26Because, as Ehenyo showed, a small act of trust can spark a transformation powerful enough

05:31to lift entire communities.

💵 “They Gave $500 to Every Poor Person — What Happened Next Shocked the World!”

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