I feel so happy and empowerd to approach life with much dignity and self-esteem. I bought a dairy cow that is soon calving and hopefully will provide me with milk and ghee. This will improve on my food security and nutrition. I intend to sell the surplus which will add on my cash flow. This will enable me pay timely school fees with ease. My children will no longer be sent home as before when they used to miss lessons and exams due to lack of school fees. I also bought a water tank that I would like to harvest and store rain water. I hope this will save me from the daily budget for water during dry season and instead divert the money to buy food for my family members. As a subsistence farmer, I managed to plough a piece of land that I have already planted maize and beans, this will improve on my food security and the money I initially used to buy food can be saved and channelled to future plan of constructing a better house. Thanks to GiveDirectly that has enabled me to meet the goals of my life which I really longed for but could not manage any due to lack of steady and reliable income.

GiveDirectly has a direct contact with the people recipients which is so satisfying and accurate. However, the program could increase the transfers to aid those that are more vulnerable to sustainable levels.

I spent the transfer on paying school fees for my son who is in form two. I value education because it empowers people and enables the community to make good choices in life. I felt so embarrassed when our people refused to embrace the GiveDirectly program due to illiteracy and ignorance while languishing in extreme poverty.I would not like a repeat of such a mistake in the generation of my children. I never had an opportunity to get proper education that could equip me with the necessary and relevant skills to compete the job market and this has hindered me from leading a better life. My father refused to pay my school fees being that he had a polygamous family and instead preferred to provide for the younger wife. The pain of denial to education haunts me a lot and therefore would not like that my children go through the same. I lack any form of investment that I can give to my children and therefore education is the best I could offer them.

The biggest difference in my daily life is that, I am so relaxed and not worried of paying school fees which has been the case before.

The moment I received the transfer I felt very happy, actually I have never been happy like this for such a long time. We celebrated with the whole family by eating our best meal.

I kept a larger portion of my transfer as savings hoping to pay school fees for my chilld and the two relatives which has been a burden. The remaining amount went on constructing an animal shed for my cow.