The best way to describe our attempts at registering vulnerable people for the Cash Transfer Program in Oyo State is by calling it a race against time. We had 5 days within which to register almost 1000 vulnerable people across 3 local Government Areas. Now, this seems easy enough but the criteria we had been given by the International Federation of the Red Cross were stringent.
- They may be orphans.
- They may be widows or widowers.
- They may be a child who are heading a household.
- They need to have suffered economic loss as a result of COVID-19.
- They need to have a valid Photo ID.
I think I had the most issues with requirement #5.
Let me explain. In Ibadan, we met this blind and very old woman. She was the only surviving person in her family. She had no kids, no husband, no siblings, no known family anywhere and no Photo ID as she had just been robbed.
It was obvious that she badly needed the Cash Transfer, buut the lack of a valid photo ID presented a problem. I had to call the Focal Point of the Cash Transfer Programme, Dauda who asked that we create an identity card for her and then register her. We did this by taking a passport photo of her, getting her name and even fingerprints.
The CTP registration procedure itself is very straight forward but because the Cash Transfer Program itself is built on ‘Transparency’ itself, it can seem wearisome.
How do you identify somebody who needs help?
Sometimes you meet two people who need help but you have a strict quota and can only help one.
What do you do?
Which of them gets the help?
So many questions>
When we would get to a targeted community, the first point of call would be the Palace of the Traditional Ruler. We would introduce ourselves and our organization. We would explain our mission and the ruler would introduce us to trustworthy people within the community.
We would then form a Community Resilience Committee that would in turn, select the final beneficiaries of the Cash Transfer Program.
It was tough, but we registered every last one of them. Finally
