I spent my second transfer on school fees as well as farming. I have one child in college and the other one in Secondary School. I did not get chance to have good education due to inadequate resources and could not wish my own child to pass through the same life experience. For that matter, I declared that I will do everything to provide the best education to my children.

GiveDirectly has given people opportunity to participate in their own economic reform. The fact that people are given opportunity to make their own decision on how to use the transfer, has yielded good result, and they have done long term investments that would result to economic sustainability. Economic activity of the region is sugarcane farming, and over ninety percent (90%) have engaged in farming. GiveDirectly left so many people in the cold, after perceiving them to be imposters. We were told about the bitter result of allowing the imposters in our villages to register, but still you find that other innocent and poor individuals who could have benefitted from the program were left out without conducting investigation to confirm the allegations.

My life is different in that, I was living a hand to mouth kind of life, because of low in come. I have children in school that required me to pay fees, I also lacked good chairs which I bought. We agreed to at least buy some cows for milk production, both for nutrition in the family and for income. All these were not easy to get.

It is already another rainy season, that means a planting season in my community. To ensure food security for my household, I had to indulge in farming to ensure we have enough to eat up to the next season, and when I received the money, I spent most of it on ploughing my farm and even planting some corn in addition to other varieties of fruits for commercial purposes. Some of the money I spent on starting poultry keeping for business too. I particularly chose on rearing ducks as they have ready markets and rearing them is easy. They do not need frequent vaccinations like chicken. Not everyone does it too which gives me a competitive advantage over those selling chicken which is common. This means I am guaranteed of income in the near future.

I got the Mpesa message at around 6.00 a.m in the morning, I was so happy. I knew I GD would send me money but I was not sure it was going to be that soon. In my life, I have never handled such an amount at once, the casual jobs do not earn me much and hadling such an amount was just an awesome feeling which made me so happy.

The biggest difference in my daily life now is that I am now making profits from the ducks I rear for business purposes. My family can now afford a fair life or, let me just say, a middle-class kind of life. A life that we previously envied a lot. I am not idle too as rearing my ducks keeps me busy, feeding them and making them ready for the markets.