I have a new goal of starting up a business. Having bought a s cond hand motorcycle, has made me think of this business idea. The plan is to travel to a place called Murukan and buy firewood from people from that area. I will then use my motorcycle to transport them to my home where my wife shall be selling them to make profits. This business will require $40 to start and I am already working on a savings plan of $10 per month. My target is to then increase my stock continuously to $10. By so doing, then my wife shall also be self employed and our living standards as a family shall definitely rise. I am so much grateful to GiveDirectly for the support they gave me since this has changed my life a lot.

In my opinion GiveDirectly does very well by enrolling people directly from their houses without using other forms of middlemen. This gives everyone a chance to benefit from the cash. They are also very impartial in the way they run their operations. I personally felt that they were too fair in their enrollment process and I did not find anything that I thought was not done well.

When I was enrolled into this program, I made a promise that I will use the second transfer to buy a second hand motorcycle that will see me be self employed. Having received the transfer from GiveDirectly, I then used $520 to buy this motorcycle and used the amount that was left to service it. Initially, I used to do the motorcycle business but I was using someone else's motorcycle. This was so demanding on my end since I would first have to accumulate an amount of $50 that would then be given to the owner of the motorcycle before I could raise an extra amount to sustain the needs of my family. I often ended up straining and there are days that I would even have to use my own money to pay the owner of the motorcycle. Right now, I feel very much comfortable and I do not strain as I used to do. I find it easy to provide for my young family of 5 and it is fir this reason that I am so much grateful to GiveDirectly. The economic times are tough but I cannot fail to raise up to $3 even on a bad day. This is an amount that can feed my three children. On market days, I make up to $5 or beyond. This motorcycle has also made me think of other business ideas like buying and selling of firewood since I won't incur much costs with transport.

My happiness grew immediately after learning that I had received my transfer. I knew in my heart that my hour of elevation had finally arrived. I had been struggling even to get food, a situation that had led me to regard myself as a person of little worth for years. That evening, however, was one of my rarest moments in life. I had never felt more hopeful than I did that day. Even though I was caring for my sick father and felt financially drained, the GiveDirectly transfer helped me regain my strength. Out of joy, I informed my wife, who was also overjoyed to realize that our family was fortunate to receive the transfer.

Before my transfer, I was considered a fellow with very low status in our community. Unfortunately, I did not have a large number of assets on which to rely. However, for the time being, the most significant improvement in my life has been the acquisition of an additional cow. I used to have one cow, but now I have two. With more cows, I and my family will have plenty of milk for daily consumption, and some of it will be a source of extra income for my family.

My home has been so open without any sign where there should be a gate because we can always access it from all sides. To make it look better and more appealing, I opted to spend KES 20,000 on my home. Consequently, my home is now well fenced secured against ease of access by people that may have ill motives. I also spent KES 13,000 on building a new kitchen to replace the former that was almost collapsing. Lastly, I saved KES 22,000 in terms of live assets, buying a cow that I intend to sell it later to buy a motorcycle for the Boda-boda taxi.