I have been a businessman for so many years. In the near future and beyond, I am planning to start up boutique shops which deal with women's dresses. It has high demand as women tend to buy clothes on a daily basis. I am also planning to do subsistence farming whereby I will be mostly concentrating on farming maize, when produced, I will be supplying it in boarding schools. My family is still young, I will therefore use the profits earned to save for my children's school fees as well as basic needs like food and clothing.

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 very happy when I first received the message from GiveDirectly around 5:00 PM. When my husband came home that evening, I was alone. I informed him. We were all excited in the household and had to visit the nearby shopping center and withdrew all the money.

The biggest difference in my daily life is the renewed hope of expanding my business after the construction of a new shop on my piece of land along the road. This will not only be conducive in all seasons but also attract more businesses around that can buy produce from my farms.

I have been running a small grocery business on the roadside some meters away from my household for two years now. During this period, groceries have been the primary source of income for my household, and have been hoping to expand it further. With the first transfer, I have initiated the construction of a structure that will shelter my business once it is complete. So far, I have spent KES 25000 on purchasing iron sheets, building poles, and also timber. I also spent KES 25000 of the remaining amount on paying school fees for my elder daughter, who is currently in secondary school. She now has enough time to attend all the lessons without being sent home. I used the remaining amount on the purchase of clothes for my children and also enough foodstuff for my family of five.