I am a single mother of four school going children. I burn and sell charcoal as my source of livelihood. I do not make much and more so now with the rains being at their highest. I now rely on casual jobs for cash. The rains have led my house to fall and now we live in a house that is falling apart. I would want to repair the house but my earnings are low and their are other pressing needs such as school fees. I hope this year to save a considerable amount of money to ensure I can repair my house and ensure we live in much better conditions.

I have invested in goats since I got enrolled in the Givedirectly program. Goats are a good investment. They multiply in number and are more resilient to disease. I bought a goat in October at $30 and another in November at $32. Since December were the festivities I got food and clothes for my children. I spent $30 worth of clothes for three children and $4 on food. I was also able to buy shoes for myself in November.

I would like my children to get an education. I did not get an education and so work options are limited for me. I do not want my children to experience the same. I want them to speak in proper English and probably secure jobs that will allow to earn sufficiently to take care of themselves and me. I plan to use my monthly transfers to achieve this goal even as I always increase my herds using the same transfers.

I am a single mother of five. All my children are school going. My only means of earning money is by burning charcoal. This kind of work can only make you $5 weekly which is not sufficient to take care of all the families financial needs or even investing. Being a recipient of Givedirectly transfers makes life more bearable. I spent $20 in July and September to take care of school fees for three of my five children. I was also able to buy a few animals in this period, in July I bought a single chicken at $5, and a kid goat at $23, while in August and September I bought four chicken each at $5. I bought shoes for three of my children for school in July at $4.5.

I want to build a bigger house for my family. I am working towards that. I bought building poles and hoping to soon get more items for the project through the transfers. I want to get buy some more animals too as an investment for whenever I do not have finances for needs in the home.

I am a single mother with four school going children and I burn charcoal to make money. I am usually strained on finances as I am the sole breadwinner but Givedirectly transfers has easened my life. I spent some of the money schooling, clothing and feeding my children. $15 in March went into school fees, $1 in March and $5 in April went into buying shoes while $14, in March $12 in April, and $10 in May, went into getting food for the family. I spent $15 in May to get building poles. I would occasionally get sanitation items for the family on the other months with about $2 to $5.

Since my husband passed away two years ago, I have been the only one paying for our children's school costs, clothing, food, and other necessities. Our house was not in great shape when he passed away. You can understand how difficult it is to meet all of their expectations given that I only generate a $4 weekly profit from the charcoal business that I own, especially given the current surge in commodity prices. My modest income prevented me from building a new house, but I'm delighted that the transfers allowed me to replace the roof. Our lives are in danger because the wall is still cracked throughout, allowing stray reptiles to enter the house. So, my current objective is to rebuild the walls. I'll do this by setting away $15 per month to buy the necessary construction supplies. I'll start raising hens or goats for future investment once I've finished it..

I am both advanced in age and a widow who lacks a source of income. To meet my family's needs, I have been over-reliance on subsistence farming, a practice that has not been doing well due to unpredictable rainfall patterns. Painfully, for the previous two consecutive seasons, my crops dried off. As a result, I have been struggling to make ends meet. The situation has translated to water and food shortages, the essential commodities for survival. Therefore, as our norm when I received my recent transfer, I spent $19 on food to help alleviate the hunger we had been experiencing. Prior to transfer date, we had gone for a day without food. In addition, since my house is in a pathetic condition, I also spent $15 on buying five round poles for building a better house.

My ambition was to repair my shelter which was about to collapse. It is made up of mud walls and poles that are old had rotten. I use $30 to purchase some of the building materials and at the moment I have been able to repair one side of my structure. In addition, I used $35 to acquire sufficient food and water for the family of 7 members due to the on going famine in our area. Similarly, I used $25 to support the education of my six children who are still in primary because they had fee arrears. They were frequently sent home something that bothered me a lot. At present, seeing them learning and attending school frequently has restored my peace of mind.

I appreciate GiveDirectly for coming to help us in our time of need. After experiencing a long dry season and failing to do farming, it would have been difficult for us to fulfil our basic needs like food. GiveDirectly has taken a great deal off our shoulders by giving us financial support. We can now apportion the transfer on buying foodstuffs for our families and paying fees for our children. This, in my opinion, is what GiveDirectly has done well so far.

I thank GiveDirectly for the financial help which has enabled me to overcome my biggest financial challenges; providing food for my family and paying fees. I am a widow who depends on selling charcoal which does not pay much. I could only manage to sell a sack of charcoal once a week and the money was not enough compared to my family's needs. Because of the transfers, my children are now in school studying comfortably. I have also had enough food in my household since I purchased adequate maize flour that can take us weeks. Apart from this, I also used Ksh. 1500 to buy some building poles to renovate my house. It is old and dilapidated and I am planning to save enough money every month and buy more building materials to rebuild it.

The night before rece6the cash transfers my family and I had actually gone to bed hungry due to lack of food and lack of money to even afford to purchase a meal. The following day would have been similar were it not for me receiving the money when I did. Therefore I was over the moon because finally I could afford a meal for my kids and I.

For me I would definitely say nutrition because at times my kids and I go hungry for days but ever since we got enrolled and started the donations the amount of times we lack food are lesser when compared to before knowing GiveDirectly.

I happen to be a widow and when my husband was still alive he was the breadwinner of the family so without him making ends meet became a struggle day by day. I relied on farming mostly to cater for nourishment of the family but unfortunately drought came upon us and has lasted quite sometime now consequently leaving us closer to starvation than we were before. As soon as I received the money I went ahead and bought half a dozen packets of maize flour for KES 750 then used the remaining balance of KES 450 and bought my daughter brand new school uniform since she was resuming school and her old uniform was old and torn.