My life is now different in that we do not struggle so much with our daily necessities like meals, like we struggled with in the past. We catered for our most disturbing needs with the transfers and now we can concentrate on improving our living standards by having a better life and better meals with the income that we make from our casual engagements.

Give Directly has done well in giving us money to change our lives. Our lives have really transformed as some villagers have built houses, others have invested in livestock and businesses. If you walk around the village now, you will see the transformation that I am talking about. I see nothing wrong that Give Directly has done.

I spent my second transfer to pay school fees for my three children in high school and to repay some debts that I had. I have three children in high school. I spent more than half of the transfers to clear their school fees as one of my children is in form four and about to clear high school. I burn and sell charcoal in my village and I am also involved with available farm jobs in the village. My husband burns charcoal also for a living. We have struggled a lot with school fees, and especially having three children in high school has always drained us financially of the little income we get. My mind is now at peace to know that my children will stay in school because of the money that I received from Give Directly. I also spent the money to repay some debts that I had.

The biggest difference is that through the transfer I acquired the livestock, the cows and the goats for which previously I had none. I am happy that I have some assets to keep in my household as security for the future.

I had already woken up for my day's tasks and I decided to go through my messages on my phone. I read several of them but only one caught whole attention. It was the message from GiveDirectly notifying me that I had just received my first transfer. I was very happy and joyous for this was the only time that I've gotten such a large sum in all my life.

I spent my first transfer to buy two cows, four goats and on paying school fees for my children. My area is conducive for livestock keeping and in large numbers and they make up one of the best assets bases one can have in our area thus, for this reason, I acquired two cows and the four goats. I am expecting that they will reproduce and increase in number so that in cases of future financial challenges or crisis then I can sell them to raise more money. The two cows will also provide milk for my household consumption. I have three children that are in high school and they had huge fee arrears and risked being thrown out of classes and stay home due to the fee balance. Due to this, I paid a portion of the transfer to each of them to reduce the fee balance so that they can comfortably enjoy their stay in school. The rest of the transfer I also bought enough food for my family.