Yes. I want to build my family a better house. I have in mind a 2 bedroomed house having a veranda. My house at the moment is in a bad state. It is actually falling down and any time from now the house might come down and it’s even dangerous and scary to sleep inside the house. With the new house I am going to build, its going to provide shelter for me and my family. During times of bad weather I have not been able to sleep comfortably and with the new house coming my children will sleep well away from the harsh weather such as the rain. The other goal I have is to buy livestock and start rearing. The livestock will help me greatly once they double in numbers. I can sell some, while I can use some as food for my family in times of need. I am planning to also buy a bicycle to help in fetching water for my family. This area we live in known for famine and water shortages. I have to walk for very long kilometers of about 60 to and fro to be able to get water for use at my home. With the bicycle it’s going to make work easier for me and I will be able to access the faraway places and get water for my use and even sell to earn cash.

Give directly has done extremely well in enabling us to have cash and build ourselves better houses and also improving the status of our lives.

I finished building my new house that I had started building using the cash given to me at the first round. So I did buy iron sheets, nails and timber for its completion. I also bought a bicycle to assist me in fetching water for my house hold use over the long distances. I did buy a bed for myself and my kids alongside beddings since we did not have any. I also spent some amount on buying livestock and the rest was spent on food for my family.

It was exactly 8 AM when I was from the dam with my friends then I heard my phone ringing. That was an alert of an incoming message but since I was very tired I never bothered to check at that particular moment. Upon arriving home, I asked my sister to check its contents. She realized that I had finally received the cash transfers from GiveDirectly and I was so happy to an extent I couldn't even utter a word. Later on, my other family members joined for the celebrations.

The biggest difference in my daily life is that I now have a spacious, decent iron-roofed house that I constructed using cash transfers I received from Give Directly. Previously, my family which is comprised of eight children used to live in a very small single room. We could barely fit in it but we had to persevere since we didn't have any other option. At some point, I had to send some of my children to their grandmother's house which was relatively small as well. My biggest dream back then was to at least renovate the small room we had but due to lack of finances we had to survive in it however bad it looked like and we couldn't stop being the whole village laughing stock. My only source of income was through doing casual jobs. The meager income from these daily hassles pushed away my hopes of living a decent life. On a good day, I could earn as much as KES 500, although this was not guaranteed, and sometimes we could even fail to provide food for my children. The issue of being rained on every winter season had become too much, it was one of the worst experiences I can remember. This is one of the reasons I badly wanted to build the house. This has now become history since we now have a better house and we no longer worry about the heavy downpours or even the insecurities from being attacked by insects or crawling animals as we used to.

I spent part of my first transfer on buying several building materials such as iron sheets KES 16800, building poles KES 7000, timber KES 600, nails and threads KES 1000, and labor cost at a total of KES 5000. I had to purchase all these with an aim of constructing a new house because the previous one was just a temporary small hut. Also, I bought a wooden bed for my children because they have been sleeping on some old mats for all that time. I later paid cleared school fees arrears (KES 3000) for my three children so that they can study without any disturbances. In addition to that, I paid off a dept of KES 5000 to a friend who owns a kiosk in the village. With the remaining amount of money, I bought enough food like maize flour, vegetables, and other household items like clothes for my children