As I said I have a dream of putting up a business selling daily use retail items. My target is to have $500 to start the business and I have so far $210 and still saving towards my goal. My estimate is that I will be able to begin the business next year. I had always wanted to go to college but the lose of my father in 2015 leaving my mother a single mother with four children. She is a farmer and hence never made much to have enough to take us through college. I also married but I live with my wife in my mothers house which I would want to change. I hope through this business I will afford money to go study and become a plumber as well as put up a house for me and my wife.

Since July of last year my spending seem to be similar for all months. I started saving $30 monthly while I spent $4 which has been the case till this month. I decided to start saving towards a business after getting the idea. I now work in a butchery in the neighbouring town to home which is still far from my home and my employer was gracious enough to provide my accommodation and so I do not have to save towards getting rent. I get paid about $2 which I will use to cover my food for the day as well as save $0.5 cents daily. My wife who I also recently married got a job as a shopkeeper and this gives her an amount to take care of her needs. This is what made me comfortable enough to save towards my business idea.

I am in the process of enrolling in a driving school, my main goal is to be employed as a driver. My cousin has offered me a job opportunity once I obtain my driver's license. Additionally, I plan to open a shop conveniently located near my former school, as the closest shop was quite a distance away.

I'm so grateful to Givedirectly, the transfers have enabled me to complete my high school education successfully, a fact that brings me great happiness. I have been paying school fees with the transfers. My sole source of support had been my mother since my father's passing on eight years ago. she would struggle to generates income through livestock and poultry farming to assist us but it would not be enough to meet my brother and I school requirements. Last month I contributed $20, a potion of the transfers to our merry-go-round group of twelve members. When my turn comes, I will have accumulated $240 which I will use to cover my college fees. I will also support my younger brother by paying for his trainings. I then bought my personal items with the remaining $14.

I have been planning to join college. Therefore, I hope to accomplish this by saving most of the monthly transfers. When that savings build up, raising my college fee will be easy. I opted for this because my mother is often overwhelmed to take care of the family. She is a jobless widow who over-rely on burning charcoal to feed her children. We have been living in hardship since my father died in 2005. Once I manage to attain a college education, I will be able to have skills that can help me acquire a job and work to improve the living standard of my mother and my siblings.

I completed my O'level last year, and I hope to join college this year. From my recent transfer, I set aside $20 to help me build savings toward my school fee. I have been longing to enroll in a civil engineering course to learn skills that would make it easier to get a job and support my family. I intend to use the remainder for daily upkeep. I have seen my way of life improving because of the monthly transfers. For instance, I have purchased some decent clothes during the last three months. What has improved my grooming since I did not have any nice clothes before.

Since I was still in high school when I joined the program, the majority of the transfers went toward my tuition. Therefore, $51 of the transfers during the past three months contributed to lowering the amount I owed the school in arrears. Because she raises chickens on a small scale for a living, my mother does not make a lot of money from it. Therefore, we rely on my two brothers whose occupation is to install electricity. They couldn't entirely pay the school fees on time because they also have families to support. Additionally, even though I was in school, I was unable to buy quality clothing because I had no other means of support. I'm happy to say that the organization has provided me with a couple of good ones right now. This is due to the fact that I spent $51 on new clothing and shoes. By the time I start college, we won't need to budget for new clothing. I am appreciative of the assistance given because, thanks to it, we were able to decrease the arrears on my school fees to the current, manageable amount of $20. I'm hoping to finish it with some of next month's transfers as I will be collecting my high school certificate from the institution.

In my opinion, what GiveDirectly is doing is giving out cash transfers without any condition tied to it. Imagine if I was restricted on how to spend the transfer, I wouldn't be able to educate myself, and maybe I would drop out of school in form 4. This has not only brought a change in my life but also reduced the family burden as the money that would be spent on my education is now being used somewhere else. I also like the individual enrollment, provide one had an ID and is 8 years and above, they received the transfers. I haven't seen any area of improvement so far.

I am currently a form 4 student at Mnazimwenga secondary school. I am the third born in a family of 4 children. I stay with my mother who is currently jobless and we have been surviving at the mercy of my elder brother who is a mechanic as he too struggles to make ends meet for his family. I was so elated to be enrolled in GiveDirectly program as it marked a new beginning in my life. I have been struggling to pay my own school fees, this was after my father passed on in 2005, something that delayed my studies. Being raised by a single mother, I decided to use my recent transfer to reduce my fees arrears by $20 while the remaining $ 10 I spent on my personal items such as clothes and pocket money. Paying the fees helped reduced the amount from $ 97 to $ 79. This has made me stressed-free from being sent back home for fees hence increased in my concentration while in class. I am so grateful for the GiveDirectly support. 

It was on a Friday at 4.04 p.m. when I had just come from school and received a message alert. When I checked my phone and found I had received the money from GiveDirectly, I felt so happy and confident because I knew I would at least settle a portion of my fee arrears.

Settling part of my school fees is my biggest difference because I managed to stay in school without disruption. In addition, it accorded me ample time at school for studies leading to my improved performance and peace of mind. I thank GiveDirectly for considering me as one of the beneficiaries of its unconditional cash transfer program.

I am a secondary school student currently in form four. I am the third born in a family of four and live with my younger brother. My father died some years ago leaving our mother and my elder brother as the family’s providers. In most cases, we depend on my elder brother who works as a mechanic in Mombasa. He is the one who pays my school fees with the help of my mother. Paying school fees has always been a great challenge because my elder brother has got other responsibilities as paying school fees for his daughter in primary school and fending for his family. I had fee arrears of KES 9900 and was required to settle part of it to continue learning. To ensure I was never sent home from school to collect money for school fees, I topped up my transfers with KES 2000 my brother sent me and paid school fees. I saved the remaining KES 200 I intend to use as pocket money when school re-opens.