Receiving this money attracted immense benefits to me. As a parent, the money eased the struggle of providing for my family as well as educating my children. We acquired virtually all our basic needs and even improved our assets.

In my opinion, GiveDirectly does well by giving us unconditional cash. This allows us to spend the money according to our varied priorities and preferences. On the other hand, I see nothing that GiveDirectly doesn't do well.

I spent 4,000 shillings of my second transfer on paying school fees and purchasing school uniforms for my four children. I used another 15, 000 shillings on purchasing furniture. Besides, I bought and installed a solar lighting system at a cost of 5,000 shillings. Still, I used 5,000 shillings on purchasing a goat for rearing. Moreover, I repaid a debt of 10, 000 shillings which we had. I spent 5,000 shillings on buying clothes for my family members. Finally, we utilized the remaining amount on purchasing food stuffs.

It was around 1 pm and I was at the farm working when I heard an SMS alert on my phone. I decided to check what it was all about and I could not believe what I read in the message. The message was indicating that we had received the 55000/= that GiveDirectly had promised us. I became so happy and I left what I was doing for a while to rejoice. I told my children who had accompanied me to the farm and they were so happy that they started making requests for new clothes and shoes. Seeing their excited faces, I could not say no to them. This made them very happy and they jumped up with joy.

This transfer has brought a big change in our lives as a family. We have been able to build another house that is roofed with iron sheets. We hence have more room that is enough for us and the children. Guests visiting the household will also be able to have somewhere to sleep. We also no longer look odd one out in the village and hence we now look like our neighbors who have houses roofed with iron sheets. The one and a half bags of maize that we bought will enable us to have something to eat for a while and hence we will no longer go hungry. We have been able to have a meal at lunch unlike before where we had to at times take tea only. The children are hence happy because they have something to eat and also because they have gotten new clothes and uniforms for themselves.

The transfer from GiveDirectly has helped me a lot. I have built a house with part of the money. I also bought one and a half bags of maize that will serve as food for my family. The transfer also enabled me to buy a few clothes for my children and I also bought new school uniforms for them. We have always wanted to build another house that is roofed with iron sheets because we have been living in the one that is grass-thatched for quite some time. Getting grass for roofing the house has become a big challenge, you have to go to a very far place to get them. Although we have always desired to have another house, we were however not in a position to build it because of a lack of money. I practice small scale farming of growing and selling vegetables, onions and my husband usually does casual work on other people’s farms. The little money that we get from our sources of income has mostly been going to the purchase of food. We sometimes experience a dry season in our area and hence the maize does not do well at times. This hence leads to a lot of hunger and we have to buy maize for consumption. So when we got the lump sum transfer from GiveDirectly, we saw an opportunity to do what we have always wanted to do.