My new goal Is to be able to make more investments in terms of my livestock selling business and other agricultural activities like crop farming here at home. All along I have relied on these two activities to earn a living but I suffered a slight setback in my livestock selling business when I underwent an operation on my stomach. I found myself in a peculiar situation where I was not supposed to engage in strenuous activities like farming or walking for long distances. This means that I needed to have more money at my disposal to be able to continue with this business. I was able to inject some of the money that I received from GiveDirectly into this business and even bought livestock that I now keep at home. My plan is to plough back profits from this business to be able to expand the same even the more and make more profits from it.I am personally very grateful to GiveDirectly for enabling me actualize this dream again.

In my opinion GiveDirectly did well by being very kind during their enrollments. The officers were very kind in passing information and made sure that everything they communicated was well understood. They did not stop at that, they went ahead to make sure that they made a follow up on all the recipients that received the money and their main intention was to see that each and every person received their transfers well and put the money into good use. Their desire was to see positive change among people and that no one stole the money from the other. To me this was so outstanding and touching. I did not find anything that I thought GiveDirectly could do better. They were just very amazing in the way they carried themselves.

I used KES 15000 to buy a heifer and used another KES 9000 to buy maize for consumption and the remaining amount was used to improve my livestock selling business and to clear school fees arears for my children. I made a decision to invest in livestock since it is a wonderful savings plan and especially for the huge amount of money that I was awarded by GiveDirectly. I needed something that will not only enable me to save up the money but also multiply with time. Cows will reproduce and give me profits at the end of the day. I am also very available to take care of them here at home since I no longer travel out a lot these days owing to my health condition. The money also came at a time that we were facing serious starvation where we had days we almost slept on empty stomachs. It is for this reason that I spent KES 9000 to buy food for family which has lasted us until today. My livestock selling business has since been boosted with the money but there is a general lack of money among masses making it very slow in terms of profit generation. I am however very optimistic that better days are ahead.

It was in the morning and I was outside in the compound busy feeding the cow when I heard an incoming SMS on my phone. I decided to check it and I was so delighted to see that it was an SMS saying that we had received the lump sum transfer from GiveDirectly. I couldn't hide my joy and I called unto my wife who was preparing some food in the kitchen. She came out and she couldn't believe her ears when I told her that the long awaited blessing had arrived. We celebrated together for a while because we knew that all the plans that we had were now going to be fulfilled.

The biggest difference that the transfer has brought into our lives is some peace of mind. We now have fewer thoughts and we are happier having been able to achieve to do things that we thought we were never going to be able to achieve due to lack of money. These are things such as being able to construct another kitchen and buying a calf that is going to be of great benefit to us in the future. This has only been possible because of the money that we got from GiveDirectly. Thank you so much.

We spent most of the money that we got from GiveDirectly on constructing another kitchen. We have been having a grass-thatched one and over the years we have been experiencing a lot of challenges in it. When the grass gets old, it starts to rain in the kitchen and this results to a lot of mess because the food can be rained on. As a result, the grass needs to be replaced from time to time and getting the grass is a challenge, we incur costs of buying and transporting it. We have always wanted to construct another kitchen but we were not in a position to because most of the money that we get usually goes to the payment of school fees for our three children. We are therefore so grateful to GiveDirectly for making this dream come true for us.