Before, I use to struggle to provide for my family. I would live by my daily wage but now I am glad that I got a good harvest from a piece of land which I had leased and planted some food crops. Again, I got some livestock which I usually look after them after days work on my farm. GiveDirectly changed my life as I no longer struggle with my daily needs.

Most of us were living below the poverty line and GiveDirectly did well by giving us some aid to improve our livelihoods. I believe that there was nothing which wasn't done well by officers from GiveDirectly.

Before GiveDirectly came to our village, we use to live in one of the houses which our father gave us. When I got my second transfers, I spent a large portion on buying building materials and construct two houses one which serves as a kitchen and the other which act as living room and bedroom. The remaining portion, I spent on buying three goats for rearing.

I was at home relaxing after taking lunch when I heard a message notification on my phone. I checked it and to my surprise, it was an M-Pesa message saying that we had received the transfer of 55000/= from GiveDirectly. I was so happy to see this and I immediately told my family members about it. They were so happy to hear the good news and we celebrated together giving thanks to God. Since we had already planned on what we were going to use the money on, I waited for a few days then left on Saturday to the market to go and buy the cow that we had always desired to have.

This transfer has enabled us to achieve our dreams and hence it has brought a big difference in our lives. We have been able to buy the cow that we have always desired. We will thus no longer have to worry about where we are going to get a large sum of money to do so. The cow has enabled us to get milk that our children are consuming. I hence no longer have to do casual work every day to get money to buy milk. Costs of buying milk have now been cut down. The transfer has also enabled me to buy chairs that we did not have in the house. We have hence been able to sit comfortably together with guests visiting our house.

This transfer from GiveDirectly has helped me in a great way. I was able to buy a cow that I have always desired to have. The reason why I wanted to have a cow of my own is that my children have been lacking milk for consumption. They have sometimes been forced to go to school without taking tea in the morning due to a lack of milk to prepare it. I have been buying milk and it is costly to do so. I was also able to buy chairs to seat on since we did not have any in the house. Although I have desired for a long time to do the above things especially to buy a cow, I have however not been able to due to lack of money. My wife and I do not have stable jobs since we did not study that much and we dropped out of school long ago. We, therefore, depend on farming and casual jobs as our sources of income. The money that we get from these sources of income is only enough for us to buy food for everyday consumption such as milk and pay for our children’s school fees.