My new goal is to restart livestock rearing especially goats keeping. This is a very profitable venture that I engaged in 2 years ago but stopped, after selling all the animals to support the education of my 2 children through secondary school. With cash, I will be able to purchase 5 goats for a start. Accomplishing this will restore the joy and economic freedom that I lost for a long time due to lack of capital.

In my opinion, the decision to send cash directly to poor households in society was what GiveDirectly did well. This reduced the loss of money through intermediaries. Furthermore, following up with each recipient after every transfer helped to ensure maximum impact of the aid to the households something that I am happy about. I can confidently say there is nothing that I feel the organisation did not do well.

I spent KES 10,000 of the most recent transfer to boost the small shop business of selling maize flour, dry fish and beans. Earlier, I had less capital to run it something that resulted in a low profit. Nowadays, I am so happy that my profit has increased from KES 700 to KES 2000 per 3 weeks. The income is enough to support the needs of the family like food without much struggle. Furthermore, I used KES 13,000 to purchase 23 bags of cement, and building stones to renovate the shop which did not have a floor. This led to losses because most of the stock was destroyed by dust. The remaining amount assisted me in acquiring enough food for the family because of the famine that we are experiencing in the area for over 2 years now.

It was around 5pm and I was just relaxing at home when I received the text message confirming that I have received the money from GiveDirectly. I was so happy when I got the money because we had been told that it's main aim was to reduce poverty, therefore, I was sure it was going to elevate my life.

The biggest difference in my daily life since I started receiving money from GiveDirectly is I was able to build pillars around my house and reinforce its walls, which would prevent them from collapsing. I was also able to add stock to my business, which was not possible before.

I spent most of the transfer which was KES 16500 on building pillars around my house to reinforce its walls because it is an old house and the walls had weakened which was hazardous to our life since they could collapse anytime. Therefore, when I got the money I made sure I prevent before having to later on struggle to find cure for the disaster that would have befallen us. I also spent KES 4000 on adding stock to my little kiosk that had been my business and sole source of regular income because I had gotten the money. This transfer helped me get the commodities that most of my regular customers used to ask for, which is assurance that I will always be able to meet my family's immediate needs with the proceeds from my business, all thanks to GiveDirectly.