A Kenyan family has won a whooping $50,000 (Ksh.5,000,000) cash prize on popular American daytime TV show ‘The Ellen Show’ hosted by the renowned Ellen Degeneres.
The internet is ablaze with the video uploaded on YouTube on Thursday (02.04.19) which shows the family of four being reunited after having not seen each other for two years.
The video starts with Ellen playing a clip of Achieng Agutu, a Kisumu-born girl studying in the United States, dancing on set before the beginning of the show. She then invites her on stage where she (Achieng) narrates how she mastered the English language by watching ‘The Ellen Show’ as a young child.
“I moved here (to the U.S) about five years ago for higher education and it’s been amazing but it’s also been really hard for my family back in Kenya because they’ve honestly done every single thing from selling land to taking loans to be able to pay my school fees and make sure that I’m comfortable,” narrates Achieng.
She also revealed that she has many jobs: She has a full-time job, she is a Uber driver, a babysitter, washes peoples cars, cleans houses and also teaches English to International students.
Ellen pretends to connect Achieng with her parents who are supposedly in Kenya and her brother Churchill in South Africa via video call before the signal goes down. The host then pretends to head towards the video control room to fix the signal, only for Achieng’s parents and brother to emerge when the door opens.
The visibly excited family are then given a chance to play a game where they are required to pick one card from a group of three – labelled 1,2,3 – with different figures inscribed at the back. Fortunately, they select the card labelled 2 which comes bearing the highest amount out of the three; a whopping $50,000 (Ksh.5,000,000).
The 61-year-old comedienne always partners with different companies to reward some of her fans who have touching stories and are doing some incredible work in the community. Late last year she rewarded another Kenyan living in the US with Kshs 2.5 million for him to pay for college as he had forfeited the chance so that he can pay for his siblings’ education back in Kenya.
Ellen and her actress wife Portia de Rossi visited and stayed at the amazing Giraffe Manor in Nairobi last year while on their way to Rwanda for the wildlife fund’s first project. They were building a permanent home for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund for the wild, endangered gorillas of Rwanda.
