I have been working as a casual driver on a seasonal contract that only pays whenever there is enough work to do. I am a passionate driver and have always prayed for a day when I can start a business that I can run and pay myself the much I want from my job. At the moment, I have a new goal to obtain a motorbike that I will be operating independently alongside other farming activities that I had been doing. This will be the start of an income-generation project to boost my savings, and hopefully, I will be able to own more bikes or even a car in the future.

In my opinion, the great effort by GiveDirectly to fight poverty in our village was satisfying. Everyone who received the transfer invested in what they needed most as we were given the freedom to make decisions on spending the cash transfers we received. I have never heard anyone unsatisfied throughout the process but appreciated the fair treatment by GiveDirectly that was not biased at all.

After the start of the renovation of my old house with the first transfer, I had to put it on hold at some point and later addressed it after receiving the second transfer. I spent KES 28000 on sourcing materials and hiring labor that constructed an extension to provide an extra room for my children. I also purchased foodstuff worth KES 5000 for my family of four, cleared a debt of KES 10000 that I had in the shop, and deposited the remaining amount into my savings account that I had been growing with the hope of initiating an income-generating project in the future. I am grateful to GiveDirectly for this generous support and I am praying that I will one day be able to tell my children a story behind a better future that I am looking forward to.

I operate a bodaboda business in my locality and as I was going on with my daily routine, I received an SMS notification. I decided to check it hoping that it was an Mpesa message from one of my customers who had not paid for the services I had offered him. Upon reading the message, my heart was filled with joy for it was not only an Mpesa message but a message indicating that GiveDirectly had honored their promise. Having such amount of money in my account gave me hope that I would finally complete building a house for my family.

The biggest difference in my daily life is that I have been able to complete building a more permanent house for my family. Before receiving my transfer, I had built this house but had not started living in it as I had not done the floor. I was still saving up the money to use in buying some cement, sand, tiles and cealing but I had not been able to save enough as I would at times use this savings to meet our daily basic needs. Currently, I am glad that I live in a clean and more presentable house which is dust free unlike before when I used to live in a mud house.

When GiveDirectly came for enrollment, I was already in the process of building a more permanent house for my family. I had completed the structure and the remaining part was to fix cealing and tiles. When I received my transfer, I decided to spend KES 48000 to complete it and paid for the labour. As a way of investing this money and have something that I will always use to remember GiveDirectly, I spent KES 5000 to purchase a goat for rearing.