I do subsistence farming for a living. In the coming year and beyond, I am planning to hire a piece of land as the one I have is smaller in size. I will be hiring labour so as to save on the time wastage. I have been doing it with the help of my family members who are only available in the evenings, and it could take us a whole month to complete an acre of land. In addition to this, I will be opening up a new business of groceries. The business will specifically be taking care of the family's basic needs like food and clothing.

In my opinion, what Give Directly does so well is that they give out unconditional transfers, different people have different needs and therefore it would be of no importance if the transfers had any restrictions on the spending patterns. The transfers are given in lump sum amounts and this helps in planning purposes in terms of the developments that we would wish to engage in at a personal level. Unlike other projects where it is given in small amounts. To avoid household conflict, what needs to be done differently is enrolling all the individuals in the household. During enrollment, those individuals who did not have responsibilities by then were left out of the program yet these are the same people who steal from their old and vulnerable parents. Another thing that needs to be done differently is enrolling all the communities in a specific village for uniformity purposes and this will prevent too many complaints coming from the communities that are left out during the registration to the programs

I am a parent of three children. Two are in Secondary School, a boy and a girl, while the other is in college studying Education in his first year. I used a total of kshs 20,000 to clear their school fees arrears that have accumulated for the past year. Before the transfers, I was living in a small grass-thatched house and it could not fit all my family members. Besides, it was leaking during the rainy seasons. The boys used to sleep in my neighbour's house and this was so inconvenient as they could go so early due to insecurity in my community as most homes do not have access to electricity. I used the remaining part of the transfers of kshs 30,000 to build a spacious decent house for my family. I am so grateful to GiveDirectly transfers.

I was awakened by the loud vibrations at around 6 in the morning it was raining heavily. Without wasting time, I decided to check who it was. Only to confirm it was from GiveDirectly alerting me that I had received my cash transfers. I was so happy and even decide to call all my family who were still asleep and informed them about the good news. It was a joyous moment in my household that we will live to recall.

I have been in marriage for over four years unfortunately I never experienced any joy. This is because of the status of my house which was small in size and semi-permanent. During the winter season, it was stressful because the roof could leak excessively and we had to sit on our beds till the rains stop. Also felt there was a need to have a better and a bigger house because my family is growing. I had however been wanting to build a new one but I did not have the needed cash. My spouse is the breadwinner who depends on temporary jobs and the little he could earn could only be for food and other secondary household needs. Therefore it would take years for us to build a modern house. My family and I are grateful to GiveDirectly for what they did for us.

I spent a huge portion of my first cash transfer to buy building materials which comprise iron sheets at KES 21000, poles at KES 2000, and the total labour charges of KES 5000. I had an intention of constructing a new house because the previous one is small in size and my family is growing therefore I was worried that soon it might not accommodate my three family members. Also, I gave my spouse KES 10000 to settle my dowry arrears and he now has peace of mind. With the remaining amount of money, I bought foodstuffs for my family and other household items.