Since my brick-walled house is still under construction, my focus is to complete it. After which, I will start saving for my kid's high. school fees, because she has two years to complete her primary school education

In my opinion, GiveDirectly does everything well. One is giving us relief fairly in form of cash directly to our phones. This has enabled my family to build a brick-walled house that we couldn't afford within the shortest time.

My dream has always been to build a brick-walled house. This I had discussed with my husband who works as a carpenter just three months before GiveDirectly came to our village. This is because currently, the school fees demanded of our four kids one being in the sixth grade and others in lower grades are not much. But this we could not afford since fending for my family I rely on casual labor and small-scale farming of maize and sweet potatoes. Additionally, my husband has been working as a casual carpenter for the past 15 years. In a good week, he gets KES 3,000 which caters to both school fees and household expenses. Luckily, when GiveDirectly came to our village I saw this as a dream come true. Building a brick-walled house being the priority, I, therefore, used 80% of my first transfer to purchase construction materials. Among them were bricks, gravel, sand, and cement. Additionally, after receipt of the second transfer, half of it was used on the purchase of more construction materials and the other half on payment of labor costs. And as we speak, my three-roomed house is up and standing and it's only short of 48 Iron sheets to complete it. To this point, I am grateful because GiveDirectly has made my dream come true. The only remaining part I shall work in hand with my husband to complete.

I was busy on the farm in the evening trying to finish the portion that I had set for that day when I heard my phone ringing. I became so happy on seeing and reading the Mpesa message and I immediately my spouse and informed him about the good news. Since he was not around, I waited for him to come back so that we would cash it and spend it as a family.

Being able to buy more building materials and new clothes for my children without having to starve is the biggest difference in my life. This would have taken us some months to achieve and I am happy that GiveDirectly decided to give us aid in terms of money instead of doing a certain project for us. Because of this, I am optimistic that we will be through with our building project before the end of the year while still making sure that our children dress in clean and decent clothes.

I am a vegetable vendor and I sell different kinds of vegetables to support my husband who is a carpenter in paying for our bills. Living in a mud house is comes with a lot of challenges. First, one has to buy clay soil to use in renovating it, and it is always very dusty hence pausing health risk to us. Because of this, we had plans to build a permanent house before GiveDirectly came for enrollment and we had been buying the building materials in bits. We had decided to concentrate on the building project since our children are still young as the eldest is in class six. With the transfer, I spent KES 22000 to buy some steel that I will use in starting the foundation, spent KES 8000 on the sand, and KES 13000 on twenty bags of cement. I will use my second transfer on iron sheets and pay for the labor since I already have the other materials like bricks and gravel. In addition, I bought a D-light lamp for lighting purposes on higher purchase terms and paid a deposit of KES 2000. I used the remaining KES 18000 on food and clothes for the family.