I would like to open a beauty parlor which will enable me to lure more clients and hence increase my daily income. The door-to-door service limits me from offering some services like blow drying and setting hair. I plan to look for a place with electricity to open the beauty parlor and buy some items to set up the business. I have a budget of $300 as capital and I intend to save as much from the motorcycle transport business and my beauty business. Accomplishing this will bring a financial difference in my life, especially when I am the only breadwinner of the family.

GiveDirectly is doing well by providing support through cash transfers, which is a major impact to eradicate poverty. Through cash transfers, my family is not struggling like before with food and school fees. I have enrolled my husband in a school of Mechanic Training and on completion, he will not only have new skills but also have a better job that will pay him enough to meet his financial obligations as the head of the family. I don't see the need to change the way of doing things,my hope is to reach more like me and change their lives with the funds.

My husband has been working as a charcoal burner. Lately, it has been a struggle to support our family of two children. I am a trained beautician and have been helping by providing my services door-to-door. My husband has been straining and hardly makes enough to sustain our family. The business has been on the low and it has been hard to survive and meet all our financial obligations as a family. My first transfer was used to buy a motorcycle that would transport firewood to some of our customers in the nearest town. The transport business has picked up well and is at least earning $5 daily. The second transfer came, and we decided it was time for my husband to enroll in a school and learn how to fix vehicles like canters. The idea came from my brother, who has trained in the same and suggested helping my husband to get a better job in the same field. We used $400 to pay for his tuition fees and used $90 to pay for both my children's school fees for the whole year and the rest $40 was used to buy us food the whole month now that my husband was not working. My family is grateful to have the support funds that have filled in the financial gap that my husband has left while attending his classes.

It was around 7 pm while I was cooking an evening meal when I heard a message popping into my phone which was on a chair right beside me. I stretched my hand so that I could confirm what kind of a message it was only to get shocked of seeing a huge amount of money in my account for the first time. I left the cooking exercise and jumped up and down in happiness for receiving the first transfer of KES 55000.00 from GiveDirectly.

Before getting the transfer from GiveDirectly, getting some food for my family was the biggest challenge. At some point, my children did not manage to go to school because they were hungry something that pained me a lot. As of now, I am grateful to GiveDirectly for enabling me to have an income-generating business that is sustaining the needs of my family. If it were not for GiveDirectly, I guess the situation could have worsened due to the drought that affected our area.

Since my husband and I had no source of income and we relied on casual labor, we sat and decided to start a new business in the service industry. Therefore, we bought a motorbike for KES 50000.00. This motorbike is used to carry some luggage from one destination to another at a fee as well as ferrying people to various places. My husband is in charge of it thus we have an income-generating activity. For the remaining KES 4700.00, I used KES 2000.00 to pay school fees for my two primary school children and bought some food with the remaining amount.