My new goal is to be able to settle down in a farm that I recently bought. Having received the first and the second transfer, I bought a piece of land away from the place I was staying in and I also bought two cows for keeping. What was left is fir me to build a new house in it before I can relocate and stay there. This is one of my key goal and I plan to use KES 15000 that I had saved from my casual work to do this. This money may not be enough but it will have given me a big boost in terms of starting off. I am so much grateful to GiveDirectly for enabling me realize my dream of owning a piece of land and for the living assets that I have been able to buy too.

In my opinion GiveDirectly did very well by avoiding any form of biasness. They did not deny anyone of us an opportunity to be enrolled as long as you were a full time resident of the village. This provided each of us an equal opportunity to be enrolled into the program

I used KES 12000 to clear a debt owed to me by a friend whom I had borrowed from earlier before. I used another KES 16000 to buy two cows as a form of investment that will help me in the future. It was just unfortunate that KES 8000 was stolen from my account by an unknown person but I was able to change pin and secure my account before the remaining amount was stolen too. The remaining amount of money was used to buy food and other basic household needs for my family.

I was very happy on receiving the message that confirmed the receipt of the first transfer from GiveDirectly. The message came in the previous night but I missed the alert since I was fast asleep. In the morning I was informed by a neighbor who had seen his the previous night and had to rush in, picked up the phone, and go direct to the messages section. At that moment, I was at home alone as I had always been after we separated with my spouse. I was glad to receive the money since I had been hoping for such a moment with the great plans that I had.

The biggest difference in my daily life is the repayment of the loan that I had defaulted and the interest was piling up and increasing the debt. This was and is still a relief to me in that the pressure I had in sourcing the finances that would sometimes cost the whole of my salary was unbearable. I am grateful to GiveDirectly for this support that assured me that I will soon be the rightful owner of the piece of land.

After separating from my wife some years back, I had been working hard to ensure that I make a better home for my children. All along I had been keen on keeping the job whose salary has brought a lot of transformation in my recent past. Two years ago I had obtained a loan that I used in buying a piece of land and had been paying in bits. On receiving the first transfer, I was still in huge debt KES 85000. I could not clear all at once but paid KES 45000 to give me a grace period of three months to complete the payment or keep paying in bits as I have always been doing. With the remaining KES10000, I managed to obtain new clothes, foodstuff that I am still using to date, and also a sheep that stands as an asset that I can sell anytime I am in dire need.