I am a subsistence farmer growing maize for sale as well as for family use. Most of the time, I hire a tractor from our neighbour to assist me in ploughing our two acres of land. The goal that I have this year is to save enough money that would assist me in farming. I intend to purchase fertilizer, and seeds and book the tractor earlier enough. This will ensure that I would plant my farm on time resulting to increase harvest since the rains are unpredictable in our area because of climate change. I will be able sale more bags of maize to support the education of my children without much problems.

Assisting poor households in our society is what GiveDirectly did well. In addition, visiting every household village to village and training them about the program before enrollment was a nice idea. I recommend they work closely with the local administration and create good relationships with them. This will ensure no household is forgotten before they move to other villages.

I am residing in a tiny one-roomed house with my spouse and 5 children. It was not enough to accommodate all of us and the household items. My grown-up daughters of ages between 15 to 20 years had to seek shelter from our neighbours every night which distressed me a lot. After receiving the first transfer, I had begun building a new and spacious house but was yet to finish. I used $150 of the recent transfer to complete the construction and now I am glad to own a decent house like others in the village. In addition, I spent $200 to support the education of my firstborn daughter who is in form four by clearing the arrears and paying part of the term one fee. Lastly, I used the remaining amount to fence our farm since the maize crops were constantly being destroyed by livestock from the neighbouring home.

It was midnight when I heard my phone vibrating and since I was not fully asleep, I decided to check and know who would have sent me an SMS at that odd hour. At first, I thought that it was an emergency but my heart was filled with joy on realizing that it was a Mpesa message from GiveDirectly. I woke up my spouse so that I would share the good news with her and also offer our gratitude to God as a family. We slept peacefully the remaining hours of the night knowing very well that everything would go well.

We've always had a dream to expand our main house since the one we had was a one-room house that served as a sitting room as well as a bedroom. We had no privacy as parents since, despite our children sleeping in a room attached to the kitchen, we had to always wait until they are done with their revision in the evening before going to bed. I am glad that we will start using this room very soon and welcoming visitors to my house will not be a problem anymore since they will no longer be seeing our beddings.

I spent KES 15000 from my transfer to clear fee arrears for my two children who had been informed that they would be sent back home anytime. In addition, I used KES 20000 to extend a room from our main house and KES 5000 to buy a set of seats since we used to use the old ones and it was risky sitting on them. Extending a room has been our goal as a family since the one we were using used to serve as our sitting room as well as a bedroom. Due to this, we had no privacy as parents and we would always have to wait until the children are through with their revision in the evening before going to bed. I fenced my farm and bought some foodstuffs to last us for some time using the remaining KES 14000.