Hello and welcome to Nairobi Kenya.

I'm Vivienne Nunes and this is the first in a series of Business Daily episodes coming to you from East Africa,

where I've spent the past three months reporting for the BBC.

In today's show, we're looking at how Kenyans have coped financially during the

coronavirus pandemic. Since the pandemic, the business has gone down, very down. They were

depending on their jobs for them to get money, but when they came outside, they have no money

even to get food. And why changes forced by coronavirus restrictions have actually improved life in unexpected ways

for some Kenyans. And they're not looking back.

They say there's a silver lining in every cloud and nobody knew that, you know, there's some positive things that,

you know, would come out of the pandemic.

That's coming up on Business Daily from the BBC.

Like much of sub-Saharan Africa, the official numbers here in Kenya suggest the country has escaped the worst of the coronavirus.

Even so, there are around 700 new cases reported every day, and there have been nearly 5,000 COVID deaths since the outbreak began.

In the early stages of the pandemic, strict lockdowns were put in place,

and there is still an overnight curfew. The economic impact of those measures has been

enormous, especially on the millions of workers who make up Kenya's informal economy.

Street vendors, house cleaners, restaurant staff and others suddenly found themselves sent home from work,

often with zero financial support.

The situation for many was dire.

Among them was Josephine Maltchiwa.

You may remember Business Daily spoke with Josephine regularly

and heard how she was struggling to raise her four children on her own.

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