My new goal is to start a small business selling petrol using gallons at one of the rental shops that I constructed with the transfer. I planning to save KES 20,000 from the charcoal vending activity and rental shop returns to start the business. This will be my alternative source of income for the family that would help me meet the needs of the family, especially education for the children.

In my opinion, Giving cash transfers to the less fortunate households in the community is what the organization did well. In addition, the training the officers conducted before the enrollment helped us to better understand and have ownership of the program. With all these done, I comfortable feel there is nothing that it did not do well.

I spent the recent transfer to complete the construction of a 3-roomed semi-permanent rental house that I had started with the first transfer. I used KES 18,000 to purchase two metallic doors for the house. This is a reliable source of income for the family to supplement my earnings from the charcoal vending job. Currently, I earn KES 2000 per month from the rentals. Furthermore, I bought proper bedding for KES 10,000, earlier was sleeping on the floor using a small old mattress that was uncomfortable. Similarly, in several instances, we were bitten by centipedes as a result of sleeping in direct contact with the ground. Moreover, I used KES 5000 to pay part of the fee for my 4 children who are in primary school. Most of the time my children would spend more than 2 weeks at home due to fees something that affected their performance and bothered me a lot. With the remainder, I bought sufficient food and clothing for the family of 8 members because we did not have enough food.

I felt so happy the moment I received money from GiveDirectly. I had left my phone with my husband who informed me upon returning home that we had finally been sent the money that we had been promised. I jumped up in happiness and my husband was amused by my excitemnet. We later planned together on how best we were going to spend the money and we are happy that we were able to put the money into good use.

The biggest difference in my daily life is the business house that we have built. The completion of these houses shall be a great milestone for us. We were lucky to have bought this prime plot sometime back but with the very many demands for my family we have had to wait until now to be able to put up the houses. This will supplement the income that we get from selling charcoal and will therefore mean that we have our children staying in school all year round and without having to be sent home for school fees. At the event that we make extra income we will be able to use the income to make other valuable family investments and better our living standards.

We used KES 50000 to build a new house and used the remaining amount to buy food for the family. The three roomed house that we built is meant to be rented out to various business people and make income from rent that will in turn make out lives better. We are patiently waiting for the next transfer to be able to complete the houses and hopefully start renting them out. All along my husband and I have been relying on charcoal selling business to earn a living- a business that is so demanding but which gives very little income hardly enough ti feed the family at the end of the day. Our five children who are in school have often ended up being sent home for school fees and we hope that with the completion of these houses we will be able to make enough income to keep them in school all year round.