I own a motorcycle that I use in offering taxi services to people in the neighborhood and my new goal at the moment is to start a retail shop business. From the money that I saved from my second transfer, I am planning to use part of it to renovate our current house and use the remaining amount to build a shop. I will then use the money that I will get from the sale of maize at the end of this season to start up this shop by acquiring some stock. With this, I will not depend on one source of income and I will be able to meet our basic needs on time.

GiveDirectly coming to my village is a blessing in disguise to us. Apart from getting money that we spent to transform our lives by achieving our goals, it started raining when they began the enrollment process yet we had experienced a long period of drought. To me, GiveDirectly does well by being a blessing to so many people through the cash program and I do not see anything that they do not do well.

I have three children who are still in primary school and when I received my second transfer, I spent KES 3000 to pay their school fees so that they would not be sent back home. Also, I spent KES 6500 to source some labor in weeding my maize plantation and spent KES 17000 on food and clothes for the family. I still have KES 25000 that I am planning to use in renovating my house since it has started leaking whenever it rains. I am grateful to GiveDirectly for the things that I have been able to achieve and those that I am yet to achieve.

December has been planting season in my region and our crops are mostly affected by diseases and invested by warms. Due to this, the proceeds are usually less and cannot last my family for more than six months. I had an aim of planting early this year so that my crops would not get affected so much but finances had been my major challenge. When I realized that GiveDirectly had sent the promised aid, my heart was filled with happiness since this money gave me hope that I would finally achieve my goal on time and I shared the good news with my spouse without any hesitation and she immediately began singing praises to GiveDirectly.

I normally do not plant hybrid maize nor use fertilizers due to lack of finances and this usually leads to low yield. This case is different this year since apart from using a tractor for land preparation purposes, I bought quality hybrid seeds and used fertilizers. Due to this, I am optimistic of a good harvest that will last my family till the next harvesting season after selling some in order to get money to use in paying school fees for my children. Because of this, my heart has been at peace and I am able to concentrate on doing some casual jobs in the neighborhood so as to get money to use in buying daily basic needs for my family.

I had decided to plant earlier this year instead of waiting until December and due to lack of capital, I had not been able to achieve this. When I received my transfers, I spent KES 35100 to achieve my goal. I hired a tractor for land preparation purposes, bought enough fertilizers and quality hybrid seeds. In addition to this, I bought a battery, bulb and a controller at KES 11700 for lighting purposes since I already have a solar panel. I settled on this since my children have always been disadvantaged studying in the evening since using paraffin lamps makes them strain a lot and I was afraid that it would affect their eye sight with time. I still have KES 8200 in my account that I am planning to use in case of an emergency.