My life is different than how it would have been had not received the transfer. This is because I have been able to reduce my monthly expenditure by KES 600. This has been possible since I no longer buy milk like before as I now have my own dairy cow.

In my own opinion, GiveDirectly does well by dealing directly with people and I do not see anything that they do not do well.

Buying milk has been my daily routine and it is costly. Due to this, I decided to be taking them from my neighbor and be paying KES 600 every month. With this, it was not even enough for making tea let alone remain with a little for consumption. When I received my transfer, I was able to spend KES 35,000 to purchase a dairy cow. I am now glad that I no longer buy milk as I used to. Using the remaining amount, I build a house for my family. Even though it is not big, I am glad that we now have some privacy as a family.

It was around 1 pm and I was at home relaxing when I started hearing the neighbors saying that they had received the transfer from GiveDirectly. I felt bad because I could not check on my phone if it was true. I had mobile money issues and my M-pesa account had blocked. Since I could not just sit and do nothing, I hurriedly prepared myself and I left immediately to town. I went straight to the Safaricom customer care office in town and I informed them of the issue that I was facing. They were able to help me and immediately I got the message saying that I had received the lump sum of 55000/= from GiveDirectly just as promised. I was so happy to see this and I called my family and some friends to inform them of the good news. They were excited too to hear this. I then withdrew the money and I went back home.

The transfer has brought a big difference in my life and that of my family. Having bought a cow, we no longer have stress about where we are going to get milk. My children are therefore no longer suffering as they now have milk for their consumption. The new house that we are building will enable us to have more room that would be enough for all of us. There will be room for welcoming visitors and my children will have a comfortable place where they can study and sleep. The food that we bought will part of the transfer will enable us to have something to eat for a while and hence we will not be having worries about where to get food. All of the above has been possible due to this money that we got and we, therefore, thank GiveDirectly for making this possible. May God bless you abundantly so that you may continue helping others.

The transfer has helped me and my family in various ways. I bought a cow with part of it, built another house with some of the amount, and with the remaining part of the transfer, I used it in buying clothes for our children and food. We have always wanted to buy a cow of our own and build another house but due to lack of money, we have not been in a position to do so. We do not have jobs and we usually depend on farming as our source of income. This farming has however not been promising. Maize has not been doing well in the past few years due to a certain disease that has been in our area for quite some time. This disease has therefore made the maize yields go down, at times the market prices are down too, this hence results in low income. The reason why we have always wanted to have a cow of our own is that our children have been suffering due to lack of milk for their consumption. Sometimes we resort to borrowing a cow from the neighbors to take care of it as it provides us milk, but after some time the owner takes it back. We also wanted another house that is roofed with iron-sheets because we have been living in a small house that is grass-thatched for quite some time. The new house was going to enable us to have more room that would be enough for all of us.