After accomplishing most of my desires with the help of the transfer, I still have a new goal which is to purchase a motorbike. I am interested in starting a motorbike taxi business as a reliable source of income for my family. This is a profitable venture which will be earning me an income per day that will help me in meeting most of my basic needs like food more easily. I will also employ my grandchild who will be running the business. He is currently doing temporary causal labor which is not profitable.

GiveDirectly did well so sending cash transfers directly to the recipient's mobile phones. This has eliminated the loss of money due to many intermediaries. In addition, it was unconditional which gives us the right to make our own decisions on how best to utilize the transfer. In my opinion, I do not see anything that it does not do well.

I resumed the responsibility of raising my family of 6 members single-handedly after my husband died 4 years ago. Providing for the educational needs of my 3 children has been the greatest challenge for me. Charcoal vending is what I have been doing to sustain and bring up my family. This is a very tiresome job with low returns. After receiving the transfer, my priority was to support the educational needs of my children by clearing their fees balances. I spent KES 30,000 on clearing all the huge fee balances that they had. I am positive that they will learn without interruption of their studies due to fee issues. I also bought 5 goats for KES 4,500 each a long-term saving for the family, especially on education for the children. I intend to sell them to further their studies.

It was around 8 PM when we were from taking supper when my phone started to ring so loudly that even caught our attention. I knew that there was good news and since I am illiterate, I asked my daughter-in-law to confirm for me the contents of the two messages. On checking, she realized that they were from GiveDirectly informing me that I had received my first transfer. I was overwhelmed with happiness and I just wish you could see how I reacted. I finally that my life will never be the same again since I am in a position to accomplish all my goals. I remember we spent the whole saying a special prayer for the gift.

The biggest difference in my daily life is that I am now hopeful since I own goats that I am currently keeping in my homestead. Before the coming of GiveDirectly, I did not have any living asset that I can depend on which has been frustrating me a lot. I have always been yearning to at least keep one goat but since they were too costly, I could not afford it. As a single mother of three, I have been trying to struggle to make both ends meet with the little income I was getting from the charcoal business. This was not enough to settle all my household basic needs. Therefore I opted to keep the goats since they reproduce very fast which is an assurance that I would have many of them within a short period. I plan that once they multiply, I will start selling the matured offspring and pay school fees for my three children. Through the livestock investment, I believe that I will not strain in taking good care of my family as before and my children will no longer be sent home regularly due to the fees arrears. I am so thankful to GiveDirectly because through the goats I feel there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I spent a larger portion of my first transfer on purchasing the building materials such as the building poles at KES 3900, pieces of iron sheets at KES 19950, nails at KES 2500, and paid the mason KES 12000 as his labor charge. I opted to prioritize this since the previous one was a small traditional house that could not accommodate us all. In addition, I bought two goats at KES 6000 which are now living assets that I can rely on at any time. I settled for the goats becasue they reproduce fast as compared to the other domestic animals. I later cleared college fees of KES 15000 for my daughter who is in her third year now. In addition, I cleared the hospital bill since I have been unwell for some time and unfortunately, I did not have sufficient money to seek medical attention. With the remaining amount of money, I bought enough foodstuffs for my family and other household items.