I am a single mother of two. I stay in a very small piece of land that I was given by my parents here at home. I feel very comfortable staying here with my two children but the piece of land is too small, hardly half an acre. It is fir this reason that I am looking forward to buying an additional piece of land once I get extra money. This may however take longer to achieve since both my children are still in school and I have to work hard to continue paying their school fees and keeping them in school. Having bought the two dairy cows that I bought with the first and second transfers, I am optimistic that I will be able to save some money once these cows reproduce. One of my children is also completing her secondary school studies soon and this will bring about some relief on my end in terms of finances. I hope that I will be in a position to realize this dream within the next two years.

In my opinion GiveDirectly does very well by doing their enrollment process in a very transparent. Their way of conducting enrollment process is just so transparent. More importantly is how GiveDirectly fulfills its promises in time. In the past I have heard stories from people who claimed that some organizations came around and enrolled them at a fee and later on ended up as fraudsters. For GiveDirectly it was quite different as they kept every bit of their promise and won our confidence and that of other people too within and without my village.

I am a single mother of two who normally rely almost entirely on small scale farming and casual labour to meet the needs of my family. It has always been very challenging to comfortably meet all the needs of my family with this kind of work. The amount of money that I get from the subsistence farming and casual work would always provide me with just enough to feed my family and pay school fees for my children. When I received my second transfer, I used $190 to buy a heifer as an addition to the first that I had bought using the first tranafer. This investment was a long term goal that would see me pay school fees for my children quite comfortably in future. I am also looking forward to them reproducing so as to earn me more income that will allow me meet other needs as well. I used another $100 to pay school fees for my child. I used the $200 that remained to build a house for my son. He had recently graduated into adulthood and he did not have a place to sleep. It pained me seeing him always going to neighbours house to sleep over. I knew it was not doing him well in terms of his private studies too. I am so happy that the house is almost complete as we are only left with the floor to finish up with. GiveDirectly has helped me a lot to do things that I once thought I would not be able to accomplish anytime soon.

It was around 7 pm I was preparing supper when I heard a message notification from my phone. I reluctantly check it out, I did not know it was a message from GiveDirectly. Actually it was a message confirming that I have received KES 55,000 from GiveDirectly. I felt so happy and immediately informed my family members and we all celebrated the amazing news. It was one of the happiest evenings we have ever had. I knew I would be able to pay school fees for my son who is in secondary school. We planned with my family members and I went and withdraw the money the following day.

The biggest difference in my daily life is that I have paid school fees for my son. This was the biggest challenge that I was experiencing. We depend mostly on small scale farming of maize and vegetables. This is majorly for consumption, sometimes when the harvest is good we sell the surplus to earn an income to pay the school fees and meet other household items. My son would always be sent home to collect the school fees and this was affecting his performance. This is because he would missed some of the lessons. When I received the transfer I immediately paid his school fees and he was able to study well without being disturbed. This has given me peace of mind to conduct other activities at home without any stress like before. I hope to see better performance this academic year. GiveDirectly has enabled us to educate our children. This has fulfilled our dreams and we are so grateful.

I spent KES 10,000 on paying school fees for my son who is in secondary school. This was the biggest challenge that I was facing. My son has been sent home to collect the school fees as since I did not have the money he was just at home. This was affecting his performance. When I received the transfer I paid his school fees and he is currently studying well without being disturbed. I spent KES 19,000 on purchasing a heifer. This is because I always buy milk daily and this is so costly for me. When it reproduces in the next few months I will get enough milk for the family and cut the daily cost of buying milk. The remaining amount of money I spent on household items and purchase of of the material planning on building a house for my son when I received the second transfer.