I have been living in a mud-walled grass-thatched house for the longest time I can remember. This structure requires a lot of maintenance and since I cannot do that myself because of old age, I usually depend on my grandchildren and other family members to maintain it for me. This, I feel, is sometimes a pester to them and takes so much of their time which they would have otherwise utilized it somewhere else. The mud floor also usually has some dust and sometimes affects my health. This will soon change because of the new house that I am almost done building. The iron roofed and timber walled house won't require much maintenance and apart from that, I will also be harvesting water from the roof for household use. I am really happy and grateful for GiveDirectly.

GiveDirectly staff did a good job by ensuring that before we received the transfers, we had enough teachings on how to protect our documents and M-Pesa accounts from con men to avoid any loss. I am also happy that the project was fairly done and reached everyone within the village.

I used the transfer received to put up a new semi-permanent house. After buying some building materials using the first transfer, I was able to use some of the second transfer to pay for labor and transport of materials. The new house will allow me to harvest rainwater from the iron sheets and will also reduce the effort used to maintain it such as cleaning.

The biggest difference in my daily life is that I have bought building materials ready to build a better and spacious house for my family. I depend on small scale farming to earn a small income to meet the basic needs of my family. I did not have an extra shilling to buy building material to build a house. I could shy away most of the time to welcome visitors to my house because I had no space to host them. This was very embarrassing because I have many friends who always visits me at home. When I received the money I started to buy building materials and now I am planning to start the construction process soon. My family will have a better and spacious house and I will be happy to welcome the visitors without any fear.

The moment when I received your money I felt so happy and grateful. I remember it was very early in the morning when I heard a message notification on my phone. I immediately called my son to checked it for me. I felt so happy when he informed me that it was money from GiveDirectly. I have never received such an amount of money before. I knew from that point that I was in a position to buy building materials and to build a better house.

I spent my first transfer to buy building materials ready to build a better and spacious house. I live in a small house that cannot host all my family members comfortably. The rest of the money I used it to buy food for the family and other household basic needs.