I had earlier acquired a loan from a self-help group to help pay for school fees and other needs. So from my previous two transfers, I used KES 2400 to pay back the loan. I also deducted KES 1500 to clear school fees arrears and procured food with the remaining amount, KES 2100.

My work normally involves building houses and they are not easy jobs to come by here in the village. I have my own six children who are school going and two more who have attained the age for attending school but haven't been enrolled yet. I also live with three of my sisters children. My aim is to give my children education so that they can make something of themselves. I am however struggling with fee payments as work is scarce. The transfers I have received have played a key role in this. My daughter in highschool was in a boarding school but it was too expensive to keep paying fees as her younger ones still need to go to school. I had transferred her to a day school but the issue of school fees followed on. I have a debt totaling 8000 shillings that I have been trying to clear. My first transfer allowed me to pay for her 1000 shillings which brought down the debt to 7000 shillings. On the second transfer I paid 1500 which brought it down much further to 5500 which I hope to finish using the subsequent transfers. I was also able to pay fee for my five children in primary school whose fee is 1400 shillings, I paid 500 shillings which covered 100 shillings for each of them. The 1500 from the first and second month went into buying food while 1000 shillings from the third transfer is what went into food. I also used 2000 shillings in debt from my table banking group which I had earlier borrowed.

In my opinion, Give Directly should, increase the amount allocated to us. From my perspective, the amount is too small to even plan something progressive with it. Although the amount has helped me in paying some bills that I owed, it is very difficult to plan something big with the money.

I spent KSH 1000 in paying school fees for my child who is currently in secondary school. The school fee for the whole year is KSH 17000. I have so far managed to pay half of that amount. A few days before receiving the transfer my daughter was sent home due to some school fees balances. I did not have money at that time and she had to stay home for approximately three days before she could go back to school to continue with her learning. Paying school fees for her was a priority for me because I want my daughter to continue with her education and become successful. I also spent KSH 2000 buying food for my family. With no job currently, it is hard to get money to buy food. I opted to buy food for my family because I do not want them to starve.

I was out running errands when I got the mpesa message stating I had received Ksh.3050 from Givedirectly. I was so happy.

The biggest difference in my daily life is that I now have enough food to last me a few weeks. I would otherwise have been worrying about how to put food on the table.

I was able to spend Ksh.1500 on school fees for my children and during this pandemic, there has been little income to buy food, I was able to spend the other Ksh.1500 on food stock.