I do subsistence farming for a living. I am planning to start up a small business supplying maize to boarding schools. I usually do it although to homesteads on order. In the near future, I will be expanding and mostly the deliveries will be done by the motorcyclist as they will be in large quantities. The profits from the business will be taking care of my kids' school fees.

According to my opinion, what Give Directly does so well is that they give out unconditional transfers, different people have different needs, and we have the freedom how to spend the transfers so long as it is something that does not harm us together with community members. The transfers are given in lump sum amounts and this helps in planning purposes in terms of the developments that we would wish to engage in at a personal level. Unlike other projects where it is given in small amounts. 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. 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 transfers, I never had cows before as I had no stable source of income. I used the transfers to buy female cows for kshs 35,000. This is for milk production for my family's consumption and sale. I do casual work to earn a living and most of the time the pay is too little to cater for my basic needs, I do top it up with the money from selling milk and this has enabled me to take care of other basic needs like food, clothing and kids school fees. I used the remaining part of the transfers of kshs 20,000 to buy a piece of three-seater furniture. I used to fear hosting friends and relatives as I never had enough seats for them, but my self-esteem has improved since I started receiving transfers from GiveDirectly.

It was around 7 Am I was milking my cows when I heard a message notification tone from my phone. I did not check it out immediately because I was still busy. When I settled down I decided to find out who might have texted me that very early in the morning. I could not believe my eyes it was a message confirming that I have received a sum of KES 55,000 from GiveDirectly. I felt so happy and celebrated with my family. That was the highest amount of money I have ever received. I went to withdraw the money the same day and plan with my family how to spend it. The topmost priority was building a better house.

Building a better and more spacious house for my family is the biggest difference in my daily life. This is because we lived in a small house before. This was so demoralizing since I was not able to host all my family comfortably and whenever I had visitors there was no space. I had always wished to build a spacious house. I run a small retail shop and does farming at home, This two are my main source of income. The small profits that I would get were for school fees and basic household items. I did not have the extra money to purchase the building materials. When I received the transfer from GiveDirectly my main concern was building a house. Currently, we lived in a better house and we no longer get worried whenever we have visitors at home. I am so grateful because GiveDirectly has enabled me fulfilled my dream of owning a decent and spacious house.

I spend all the transfer on purchasing building materials and building a better house. I was able to purchase timber, nails, and iron sheets and pay the workers. We even topped up some amount from our savings to ensure that the construction was done. We lived in a small house and I had always wished to build a better and more spacious house. I am so grateful because this has been fulfilled.