I make tea and donuts for sale in order to earn income for meeting my family's needs. I do not earn much from it because they are usually on demand in the morning hours. Therefore, I have an additional goal to start up another business which is a retail shop where I will be selling cereals and vegetables too. With this, I will never go wrong because such foodstuffs are usually in high demand. The afternoons will be dedicated to it once I will be done with the tea business in the morning hours. I believe my family's living standards will improve with the income I will be making from the two businesses.

In my opinion, Give Directly is doing a great job by giving people unconditional cash and letting them decide on how to spend it. Through this, people have become financially empowered which has led to improved living standards. On the other hand, I do not see anything that they are not doing well.

I had started to construct a house with the first transfer, but I was not able to complete it because I ran out of capital. When I received the second transfer I spent KES 47000 on both building labor and roofing materials. The previous house was in a bad condition. Whenever it rained it could be flooded forcing me to find a way of channeling out the water after it had rained irrespective of the time of the day. This was hectic and in most cases, I would get cold-related infections. KES 8000 I spent on reviving a restaurant business I had before but since it was the main source of income I had to close it down after spending all the capital on household needs. I later settled on burning charcoal for sale but it was not doing well due to the government regulations on deforestation.

At around 10am when I was fetching some water, I received a message in my phone. I took my phone to check what the message was all about and to my surprise it was the 1st transfer from GiveDirectly. The surprise was as a result of having forgotten the date I was promised to receive the transfer. I felt happy knowing that the financial challenges I was passing through have got a solution.

Having an iron sheet roofed-house plus beddings is like a mystery in my life. Even though the house is incomplete I feel like I am already living in the house. The house is a huge mark put by GiveDirectly in my life. I appreciate the generosity of the organization for coming through us in our family.

I took KES 22000.00 to purchase 20 pieces of iron sheets, poles for KES 9240.00. The aim for purchasing these items was to construct a good new house since the one am using is not in a good condition. I will convert the old house into a kitchen. I also bought some beddings because the ones I was using were torn-out. I saved the rest of the money to pay the contractor and also to carter for the family needs.