My goal is to build a house for my children. I have one house where we all live with all my children but since the number is large the house has become small. I would love to build a two room house to accommodate my 5 older children. I plan to achieve this through my savings group where I make savings of $10 monthly. The goal is to get to a point where we can buy iron sheets as well as building poles to start off.

I am able to keep my children in school thanks to Givedirectly. My transfers have played a key role in paying school fees for my 5 school going children. I have one child in secondary school and four in primary school. The secondary school fees is about $150 annually while the younger ones require about $100 annually. This is a burden that I would have been unable to bear had it not been for the transfers. I spent $50 paying school fees for my children. I have also been able to make some small savings to cover them incase they get chased from school at $30. I bought a chicken at $6 and used some money to buy food at $14.

Currently, the goal that I have is to build a house for my children. This is because my three eldest children are all grown ups and are men. Due to this, we cannot sleep with them in the same room as the eldest is in form two. Because of this, they have been sleeping in a room together with their cousins at their grandmothers house. Building them a house will always give them enough time to study in the evening and they will always sleep well as they will have enough space. Since I cannot afford to buy all the necessary building materials on my own, I am planning to use the money that I will receive from our merry go round group.

I am a member of a merry go round group that I joined with the intention of saving part of my transfer so that once it's my turn, I can use the money to build a house for my children. Due to this, I saved $30 from my transfers by paying my monthly contribution in our merry go round group. In addition, I saved $24 that I am planning to use in paying school fees for my children once the school reopens. Aside from this, I used $24 in buying school uniforms for my children to replace the old ones which were torn and were no longer presentable for anyone to wear them. Using the remaining amount, I bought food to last my family for some time at $ 14 and used the remaining $10 to purchase a plastic seat.

I am a mother of 6 children, 4 boys and two girls. I have a two roomed house which is meant to accommodate us all. However this house is so small to meet our housing needs. I send two of my oldest to their grandmother to sleep there. This is inconveniencing to her seeing that my two older children are all boys. I have wanted to build a house for my children and the most expensive building material is iron sheets. My plan is to use my savings from my VSA once given to me to buy iron sheets that I will use to build a house for them.

I joined a village savings group after I started receiving Givedirectly transfers. I save $20 monthly from my transfers. The remaining $14 goes into supporting financial needs within the house. I used this cash in September I used $2 buying soap, $2 buying sugar and I also spent $10 buying five chicken. In October I bought three chicks at $6 and I spent $4 buying flour, sugar and cooking oil while the remaining $4 went into buying a thermos flask. In November I bought some African fabric at $10 and bought two of my children clothes at $4.

In the coming year and beyond, my main goal is to successfully construct a house for my children. As they are growing bigger, it has become inconvenient for all of us to share the same living space. The limited space in our current two-roomed house has become increasingly cramped, making it necessary to find a suitable solution. Building a new house specifically for my children will provide the much-needed space and offer a more comfortable living environment. I am confident that with the assistance of the transfers I have received, I will be able to achieve this objective. The financial support I have received has already made a positive impact on my life, and I am extremely grateful for it. It has given me the means to improve my living conditions and work towards creating a better future for my children. The support has brought me great joy and satisfaction, knowing that I am able to provide a more suitable home for my family.

Ever since I started receiving monthly transfers from Give Directly, the educational experience of my five children has significantly improved. In the past, my children would often be sent home from school due to unpaid fees, resulting in weeks of missed classes. This had a detrimental effect on their academic performance. However, I am grateful that this situation has now changed. Previously, I had to allocate a large portion of my income to pay for school fees, and my children relied on their teacher, who worked as a hawker, to provide them with the necessary funds. In August, I spent $10 on remedial classes for my eldest son, who is in secondary school. Additionally, I paid $10 in school fees for my four children who are in primary school. This timely payment of fees has significantly improved their academic performance, as they are no longer frequently sent home like before. Furthermore, I was able to save $10 in our savings group. Next month, I am expecting to receive $50 as my contribution, which I plan to use to buy iron sheets and construct a larger house for my children. Currently, our living space is quite cramped. With the remaining $4, I purchased sugar to ensure that my family can enjoy tea during breakfast.

I mentioned earlier that I am making a monthly savings of $20 to my savings group. I have 5 grown children with my two eldest being 14 and 12. I moved them to their grandmother when they were around 10 because culturally I cannot live with my grown children in the same house. I have wanted to build them a house so they do not have to stay at their grandmother's house. I see this goal being achieved this year through these transfers. I would like to build a two-roomed house that my other children can transition into when they all grow. I am anticipating using the first round to get the poles for the structure while also savings towards buying the more pricey iron sheets.

Five of us in the family decided to start a savings group after we received GD transfers. We make monthly savings of $20 to the group which we have been doing since December. I used all my monthly transfers to contribute to this savings group. I used $10 from January and March transfers to pay school fees for my 5 children in school. I spent $4, $14, and $4 in January, February, and March respectively to buy food for my children. I have a young child who is less than ten months now which means I cannot go to look for tree stumps for charcoal making. GD has ensured that my children get an education despite this and also that we can access meals even when my husband is not in a position to finance us.

As of last August, I decided to start saving up money so that I could finally have enough to build a proper home for myself and my children. The house I live in at the moment is almost on the verge of collapsing, and that is what made me want to build another one. Therefore, before the end of the year, I am planning to have accomplished this. Apart from that, I also happen to have five kids who are pursuing an education, so I will use some of the funds to pay for their tuition fees as well.

Our family has grown to eight because I recently gave birth to a child. I used to  to burn charcoal for sale, but when I conceived my new born baby I was forced to quit a year ago. Therefore, my spouse is the only one who makes money for our family upkeep. He sells snacks throughout town, but his earnings are insufficient to meet all of our demands. Although a portion of the wall in our house has broken off due to its poor condition, we could not afford to build a new one. We are grateful that GiveDirectly came to our aid. I have been contributing $20 a month to a monthly rotational savings group since we began receiving the transfers in order to raise money for a new house. In a few months, when I'll have earned my shares, I hope to begin construction. I bought my family's food with the remaining $38. We appreciate the organization's assistance very much.

I recently gave birth and since then, I have not been able to resume my work selling charcoal. My spouse has since then been the sole breadwinner of the family. He does not earn enough money to meet all our household needs from the casual work he does. This left us with a huge school fees balance for our five children who are in primary school. I, therefore, paid KES 3500 to clear the school fee arrears. I am glad my children have enough time for their studies and hopefully, their performance will improve. Besides paying for the school fees, I spent KES 2500 on a new mattress for my children so that I could replace the old worn-out one they had. I used KES 500 to buy two chickens for rearing so that in the future I can sell some and raise money for our household needs. KES 2500 I spent on both foodstuffs and detergents for the family to ensure that my family have plenty to sustain us for some days.

In my opinion, GiveDirectly does so well in explaining the program to us. The whole process of enrollment is always good because it is open and free from any form of discrimination. As a result, only those who were not around during the registration are not getting the transfer. The rest are benefiting and they are so grateful to GiveDirectly. In my view, it does not do well in revisiting those who miss out on being enrolled especially when they are not at home during the enrolment stage.

I bought a mattress for my four children with KES 2,000 from my most recent transfer. I still share a bedroom with my youngest child, who is now three years old. The first four children were sleeping on an old mattress that was causing them discomfort. They are currently overjoyed since they can now sleep well. I was unable to purchase a mattress for them at first due to a lack of funds. My monthly income is relatively low because I only make KES 1,000 from the sale of charcoal. My spouse has a small hawking business that does not make a lot of money, about KES 100 each day. His earnings are very low, and he is unable to adequately support us.

My phone was offcharge and had taken it to be charged in the verge of switching it on ,I saw the mpesa message which made me feel excited and anxious to spend at the same time.

The biggest difference in my daily life is that am able to have my basic needs.I plan to use the funds and divide them equally to my pressing needs which is food,school fees and my chicken business.I believe with discipline the funds will bring alot of difference in my daily life since my household will not run out of food and with the monthly investment on my chicken business,I just may start goat farming which will strengthen my fnancial capability.

My husband is a unemployed and depends on any available jobs depending in his capability to perform. I am a charcoal burner and one thing we have in common with my husband is our jobs are not stable and not consistent. On the day I received my cash transfer had planned to use KES 670 on food which would last a week for my family of seven members.I used the remaining KES 500 to buy chicken.My goal was to start chicken rearing business which entailed me to invest in the next few months.