Being a widow who depended on casual jobs that earned me a meager income to raise my four children by myself was a struggle without any assistance from my in-laws who claimed to lack money whenever I asked for assistance. With all this, I didn't manage to give my children a quality education and the eldest among them decided to work in a nearby tailoring shop so as to sew for commissions. My life is now different because I have managed to purchase a sewing machine for my daughter. Today, she enjoys all the profits she gets from her tailoring business that she recently started. Therefore, she can comfortably chip in to assist in catering for our family's needs. I am so grateful because if it were not for the GiveDirectly to come to our village I would not have bought it anytime soon.

Before the coming of GiveDirectly, we were facing both economic and financial hardships due to the extreme poverty that we were living in. When GiveDirectly promised us that their role is to alleviate poverty by offering us the unconditional transfers, we were brightened up. We can attest to the good performance and positive impact that the transfer has brought into our lives. First, most of us have cows both dairy and oxen. With the oxen, we are assured of consuming less time in ploughing our farms and also getting good harvests. To add on that, the majority of us now have good permanent houses which are iron roofed. The previous ones were small huts that were ever leaking whenever it could rain. Lastly, our children are now studying without any difficulties. According to me, I do not see any sector that GiveDirectly failed us.

Previously, we used to have a single meal or go without thus our health status was compromised which was evident when one could look at the skinny and stunted growth that was presented physically. Therefore, I spent part of my second transfer on purchasing food for my family that would take us for the next harvesting season. With the remaining amount, I decided to boost my daughter's tailoring business by purchasing some pieces of materials so that she can sell and boost her income onto the ones she is getting from sewing.

The biggest difference in my daily life is that my daughter's business has expanded. My spouse passed on around 9 year ago and I could not take care of the family all alone. My daughter had to drop out of school so that we join hands to help feed the younger ones. Her tailoring business was not doing so well though, this means we still had to struggle to make ends meet. After the expansion of the business using GiveDirectly's transfers, we are now able to meet most of our basic and tertiary needs as she now makes more profits. I do not worry where the next meal will come from. Thanks to GiveDirectly.

When I received this transfer I was in the house. I heard a message alert from my phone and as usual, I checked what the message was all about. I saw that I had received money from GiveDirectly. I was very happy because I was not expecting to have such an amount of money. The transfer was God sent because I was expecting to take my child to school the next day. I went out of my house and saw the whole village had erupted in joy.

On receiving the first part of my transfer, I spent it on buying textile for my daughter who is a tailor. In addition to this, I paid for my son's school fees while the rest I used to buy food in the house. My daughter's business was not doing very well because she did not have enough textile to undertake the tailoring activities smoothly, so as to earn sufficient income to sustain our family. She has been of great help because she is the sole breadwinner in our family. I also settled my son's school fees, who is in a boarding school for this term, and did enough shopping for him as the schools reopened for another academic year. As for me, receiving the transfer was timely as it coincided with the opening of schools and I was in the process of planning on how I would raise some cash for my children. The remaining balance I will spend on buying food.