Given a chance, I would wish to expand my business to attract more income. This is because my children are still in school. I plan to realize this dream by saving money from my business every day. It is not easy but I am optimistic that through hard work and determination I will thrive.

The transfer from GiveDirectly impacted our lives positively in a greater way. On my end, I paid school fees for my children, which was a pressing need at the time I received the unrestricted cash. So far, I have not witnessed things that were not done well.

School fees responsibilities have been the most challenging thing that I have been dealing with. Every parent aspires to see their children excel in life. Though, raising the school fees has not been easy because I depend on my eatery and the food kiosk. I am blessed with eight children. Receiving the transfer from GiveDirectly was of a great impact because it enabled me to pay school fees with my entire transfer of $550 for my two children who are in a secondary school and one in college. This was inaccessible before because of financial constraints, but I am grateful for the financial boost that made it easy to pull through.

It was around 4:05 pm and I was on my way home from a church meeting. I was in the company of a friend with whom we were in the same meeting. She had already received the SMS telling her that she had received the transfer and hence I kept wondering and eagerly waiting for mine. Suddenly, my phone rang hence notifying me of a new message. I hurriedly checked it and I was so happy when I read the contents which was saying that I had also received KES 55000 from GiveDirectly. I shared the good news with my friend and we celebrated together giving thanks to God for blessing us.

The biggest difference that the transfer has brought into our lives as a family is that we have managed to build a house something that we never thought we will be able to achieve soon. We thus now have somewhere that we can welcome guests visiting our household. Our living standards have been uplifted and thus our lives have changed for the better.

We spent KES 30000 of our recent transfer on building another house. It has always been our wish to build another house because the one that we have been living in it was grass-thatched and the roof used to leak. We hence used to feel ashamed when guests visit our household. Getting grass for thatching the roof is also a big challenge. I am getting old and cutting grass for thatching the roof is very tedious because I have to cut about 40 bunches for it to be enough. We had a plan to build another house during the Covid-19 pandemic period but we didn't go ahead with the plan. Our son was arrested and hence we spent most of the money getting him out. Apart from that, we also spent KES 15000 on clearing the school fees arrears for our children. We also bought two bags of maize for our consumption at a total cost of KES 6400. With the remaining amount of money, we used it in buying clothes for our children. Thank you so much GiveDirectly for the help.