My goal for this year is to save my transfers to fund my children's education. I strongly believe in the transformative power of education, providing them with access to numerous opportunities and the ability to enhance their lives. By prioritizing their schooling, I am investing in their future, ensuring they have the tools and knowledge to succeed. This plan reflects my commitment to securing a better tomorrow for my family through education. I am immensely grateful for how this project has not only impacted my life but also brought positive change to my entire community.

To support my family of nine, I engage in farming and charcoal selling. Previously, life was challenging, often leading to nights of hunger due to the lack of a stable income. Additionally, the prolonged drought we experienced led to minimal harvests. The introduction of these transfers has significantly improved our livelihoods. I have wisely invested in goats, serving as a future resource in times of need, and constructed a house for my older children. Utilizing the transfers, I allocated $59 to purchase three goats, settled a $20 school fee debt, and spent $14 on clothing for my son who was lacking. The remainder was used to purchase clothing for myself. The assistance we receive has been transformative, empowering us to overcome challenges. I am deeply thankful for this opportunity and remain committed to utilizing it effectively to secure a better life for myself and my family.

My primary goal is to attain financial stability, as the income from my charcoal business has proven inadequate to meet my children's needs. To address this challenge, I have initiated a livestock rearing venture with a primary focus on raising goats. I am pleased to share that I have already started the process of acquiring goats, and I am optimistic that their numbers will multiply into a larger herd. This investment holds great value for me, as it signifies my ability to provide for my family's current and future requirements.

As a father to seven children, my livelihood has been reliant on selling charcoal and farming, which has often fallen short of meeting their basic needs. Life has been far from easy, and there were times when we went to bed hungry due to lack of food, as I struggled to afford essential needs. GiveDirectly has been a beacon of hope for my family, providing us with guaranteed monthly transfers that have not only allowed us to put food on the table but also enabled us to invest in our children's education. With our most recent transfers, I allocated $54 towards purchasing three goats, which I consider an investment for future profit. Additionally, I spent $34 to acquire iron roofing sheets, using them to complete the construction of my house, which has been a long-standing goal. The remaining $14 was allocated to buy clothes for my children, replacing their tattered ones. I am profoundly grateful to GiveDirectly for the transformative impact they have had on my life, far exceeding any expectations I had.

My primary focus at the moment is to guarantee the uninterrupted education of my four children, who are currently attending primary school. As they will soon transition to secondary school, where the tuition fees will be higher than what I currently pay, I have devised a plan to purchase additional goats for raising. This endeavor will enable me to meet the financial demands of my children's education by selling some of the goats when the need arises. By expanding my goat-rearing activities, I aim to secure a sustainable source of income that will support my children's educational journey without any disruptions.

Since Givedirectly intervened and registered us for the transfer program, our living conditions have drastically improved. Previously, my children and I resided in a cramped one-room house, where our privacy was compromised even when we had visitors. However, with the regular transfers we started receiving, I decided to invest in constructing a larger dwelling that could comfortably accommodate all of us. I utilized a portion of the funds to purchase two iron sheets and cover the labor costs required to complete the remaining sections of the house. Additionally, I spent funds towards my children's education, paying $20 for their school fees and $10 for their uniforms. Recognizing the importance of planning for the future, I also bought two goats for $20 each, as a preliminary step towards establishing a larger flock. These goats will prove invaluable in meeting the needs of my family, particularly in covering my children's school fees, as time progresses.

Currently, I do not have a reliable source of income, and my plan is to open an account that will allow me to save part of the transfers that I would be receiving. My ultimate goal is to venture into the business of buying and selling livestock, and the savings from my account would be of great help in terms of starting the business.

I am currently constructing a house because the house that I am currently living in is not enough for my family. I also have grown-up children and sharing with them a single-roomed house had been a challenge for me. Therefore a larger part of my transfers worth KES.2800 was spent on buying roofing sheets. The remaining amount of KES .400 and KES. 270 was spent on school fees for my children and food respectively.

I produce charcoal, pack them in sacks and sell them at the market. I make three sacks each week that I sell at $8 and from the money I save $10 a week to expand my business and the rest I use to buy food for my family. My wife is a farmer and currently, it's a drought season, and she is no longer farm, I am the only one taking care of the family. The money from the business covers food and pays for school fees. Givedirectly transfer has enabled me to pay school fees for my children without strain.

Upon realising that the organization had sent out the transfers, I immediately decided to use KES 1,500 from the cash transfers I had received to purchase brand new school uniform for three of my children because it had been quite long time since I bought them new school uniform and the ones they owned were torn and almost in tatters which made them lose their self esteem each time they thought about going to school. After buying the uniform I was left with KES 1,500 which I then decided to use to purchase eight packets of maize flour because having a meal was one of the biggest challenges we faced and at the time there was barely any food in the house.

GiveDirectly is doing well because through their objective to eradicate poverty, most of us have also achieved our goals.It evident that some of us have started small business and others who never had decent homes have started their construction projects .

I am a charcoal burner with six children and lately my challenge has been educating my children and providing food for them, when I received my cash transfer I spent KES 1000 on school fees for one of my children.I bought four chicken for KES 1450 and spent the remaining cash on food.I am grateful because have started chicken rearing with this particular transfer.

I was I the bush cutting tree for charcoal burning and I was so stressed because my kids had been send home, there was no food at home and I didn't have any money left with me. When I saw the message, I was so happy because I knew I will have something to put on the table and my kids would go back to school.

Honestly for now, I haven't noticed any change since but I'm hopeful that I will not be able to see changes in the next few months.

Supporting a family of 8 through Charcoal burning business has not been easy journey for me but what keeps me going is the fact that I want to educate my kids so that they will not have to go through a tough life like mine. Charcoal burning is a process and most times, it takes two weeks to cut down the trees and get the charcoal ready for selling. In between this time, kids might be send home for school fees and we may run out of food at home and therefore, we survive on debts. Averagely, I earn KES 2000 after two weeks and usually, I spent all the money on paying debts and I'm left with nothing to save. By the time I was receiving the transfers, my kids had been send home and we had run out of food. I was so hopeless and I didn't know who to turn to. I had to spent KES 600 to pay school fees and KES 570 to buy food. I'm hopeful that in the next five years, life will be a little bit easier for me as the monthly transfers would be so helpful in settling the bills.