I am a carpenter by profession. I am planning to expand my business of carpentry so as to cater for my young children who are still in Primary school. I will be doing this by taking a loan from the Sacco which I will be paying monthly from the profits collected. In addition, I will be doing subsistence farming to help boost my stock of carpentry.

In my opinion, what GiveDirectly does well in this program is that we receive the transfers in lumpsum amounts. This helps in planning as one is in a position to do something huge as compared to when the transfers are given in small instalments. The unlearned recipients are taught how to use mpesa. This has reduced the number of theft cases in the community as most of us managed to change our pins to a more secure code. 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. Give Directly staff are very transparent during the enrollment process, they are so keen during the verification process and this ensures that none is left out during registration to the program. 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.

Before the transfer, I never had a modern house, I owned a small grass-thatched house which was leaking during the rainy season. I thank Give Directly for the transfers as I managed to build a three-bedroom modern house for kshs 50,000. Initially, I never had peace of mind as it was so tiresome moving some of my valuable items during the rainy season, my young boys too never had adequate space to spend their nights and this was so stressful as they could sleep in a neighbour's house. My peace of mind is finally restored since I built a house. Getting a balanced and regular meal had been the most difficult thing for my young family of three. I used the whole balance of kshs 5000 to stock food for an entire month. We are very grateful for the transfers.

I was enjoying my evening meal at the table when I heard my phone ringing and vibrating. Upon checking what the message was all about, That was when I realised that I had received money from GiveDirectly. I was so happy and excited on seeing the message. I knew that I would be able to realise most of my goals. I am grateful for the transfer that gave us an opportunity for us to uplift our lives greatly.

Receiving money from GiveDirectly had been of a great impact on our lives. I was able to renovate and complete my house that had been left halfway due to financial constraints. Secondly, I successfully purchased a dairy cow and I am hopeful that I would be able to earn an extra income from it. I am grateful for the unconditional transfer that brightened our lives amazingly without asking for any payment in return.

I am into a cattle trade business, at the moment I am single. Upon the receipt of my initial transfer, I thought of buying a dairy cow to cut down on the cost of buying milk daily. I, therefore, used KES 38,000 on buying a healthier dairy cow. I was unable to purchase one before due to financial constraints since my source of income is not reliable. Additionally, I used the remaining amount on completing my house that has been left halfway before due to lack of funds. I am relieved and grateful for the great milestone I achieved in a short period.