I have a son who has been pursuing his university education for six years now. We have had school fees challenge that has seen him on and off in his studies. At one time he was almost giving up in his dream of completing his university education and possibly getting employed. I encouraged him to keep his hope alive despite the fact that I knew it was going to be difficult to get the money that he badly needed to complete his education. It is through the GiveDirectly transfers that he has been able to continue with his studies and is due to graduate in the next couple of months. He is so happy as well as I am. This would have been impossible without the help of GiveDirectly transfers.

GiveDirectly did so well in giving us unconditional cash transfers to us. All households were given equal opportunity of getting the transfers and its staff were not biased at all in their enrollment process. We felt proud that we were given freedom to choose what to invest the money on. As for what GiveDirectly does not do well, I do not have any negative feedback about them. They were just so perfect.

I used my second transfer to complete my newly constructed house. When I got my first transfer, I decided to build a new house. This was informed by the fact that the house that we were staying in was too old and small. Considering my young and growing family, it was only in order for us to think about constructing a bigger house that would provide more comfort and dignity to my family. With the first transfer, I was able to complete a bigger part of the house and when the second transfer came, I did the finishing and the house is now fully constructed. I also used the remaining amount to pay school fees for my children. Many times, my children would be sent home for school fees and they would stay for quite a long time before I could get money to send them back to school. When I got this money, I decided that I was going to pay their fee to allow them have enough time to study in school and possibly pass very well compared to how they are doing now.

There is a big difference in my life. I feel so light psychology. I used to be weighed down by anxiety and depression due to lack of funds even for food, not to mention feeling pressed down by a tough life of lack and poverty. I would at times give up and hand it over to God when things were so tough. I used to feel the pain of seeing my children going to borrow food from neighbors and we are so grateful because we are well fed now. The disgrace of borrowing has lifted from us courtesy of GD. We can even buy food such as meat which was so rare and we consider it a big delicacy. May God bless GiveDirectly for remembering us and sending us aid. You rescued us big time.

I was so excited when I received the funds. It was quite early in the morning around 5 AM. My children and I woke up, we even hugged each other and celebrated the receipt of the cash. My children were so elated because they knew that they will be having enough food and new clothes. They left for school that day so happy that GD woke them up with good news!

I spent the first transfer that I received from GiveDirectly on food and materials to build a house. We needed food as a household; things have been tough for us and we have been skipping meals due to lack of funds. We are grateful that we received the cash. The reason why we are building a house is because we have a son in college and we have not been able to build it due to school fee demands (the little funds we get goes to his fee). We have lived in one thatched old house with a leaking roof for as long as I can remember. This house is where we cook and sleep at the same time. Because it cannot accommodate us all, our children have been going to neighbors to borrow some space to sleep and at times they are treated spitefully and this really pains me as a parent, yet I could not do anything about it. Thanks to GD, now we are building a spacious semi-permanent house with iron roofing and a kitchen separately. The woes will be no more. I have also bought a few clothes and I am planning to buy more for our children because we lacked those too. We are so grateful. Thank you GD for rescuing us.