Does 100WEEKS change the lives of participants for good? A new in-house study published today offers the strongest evidence to date of our intervention’s long-term impact.
Temporary cash for permanent change has always been and always will be the promise that lies at the heart of our intervention. We believe that people living in extreme poverty can turn their lives around for good if given the chance. When we started out, the evidence supporting this idea was plentiful, but our specific program had yet to prove itself in practice.
Since then, proof of 100WEEKS’ long-lasting effect has slowly accumulated as the number of women that graduated from our program has grown. A new study, conducted in-house by our Monitoring and Evaluation team, offers the strongest evidence to date.
About 340 women from Northern Rwanda who joined the program before the end of 2018 were followed in the two years thereafter. Not only did a large uptick in physical wellbeing and wealth endure long after the last cash payment, women were also found to be happier and socially more engaged with their communities.
These results were made all the more impressive considering most measurements were conducted in the midst of the lockdowns following the global outbreak of COVID-19.
“We expected to be on the right track, but seeing such positive results two years after the end of the 100WEEKS program, despite the extreme conditions the women were facing, makes my work worthwhile”, Marjol van der Linden of Impact & Programs said. 100WEEKS will continue to track the women to see if the effects continue to last in the years to come.
Read the full Impact Report here
