In my opinion has done and is still doing a great job because the state we were in and by we I mean myself and other villagers, we were in complete despair and poverty stricken which was a very sad state if I ma being honest. But now through this funds we can fend for ourselves and take care of our families altogether.

After I received the transfers my first decision was to settle issues concerning nutrition because I barely had any food in the house and most times I would go without having a meal even as close to a week. Starvation has always been my biggest predicament and fear but unfortunately I go through it so many times. That is why I went ahead and bought a bag of maize which contained a dozen packets for KES 1,300 and used KES 200 to buy sardines and sugar and another KES 200 to purchase drinking water since it was such a problem back in the village and most times we had to get it from neighbouring towns which was costly because we had to pay even for transportation fee. Then I took the remaining balance and bough two hens which cost me KES 800. I planned to breed them and hopefully begin poultry farming for commercial reasons. Then lastly my health deteriorated since I kept having stomach pains and after consulting the doctor I ended using the rest of the money I had which was KES 500.

I had woken up early that morning to go and graze my livestock out in the field before the afternoon scorching sun catches up with us. I return back home at around 10 am after a five hours out grazing the animals. When I arrived my son came to me and told me that my phone rang at the time I was away. On checking my phone I found out that I had a text message, since I do not know how to read, I asked my son to read it aloud for me. He then confirmed to me that I had received some amount of money from GiveDirectly. I was very happy and immediately went into the house got ready and headed to the Mpesa shop where I withdrew the money.

Yes, the money has made a big difference in my life, I did not have food at that time and the transfer came in handy and helped out through the situation. I was also able to buy a chicken and I am positive that with time I will have many of them and I will be able to sell and earn money from that. I really appreciate that the transfer really helped me a lot.

When I received my first transfer, I spent KSH 900 in buying food for my family. The year hard been a very difficult year for us financially. We were not able to harvest any food from our farms. This proved challenging to us as we opted to engage in manual jobs such as burning charcoal and selling just to earn a living. The charcoal is also sold at very low prices and it also takes a long time before we get to sell them. I also used the remaining KSH 300 in buying a chicken as a start towards my poultry project.