I spend part of my first transfer to buy a dairy cow which hopefully, will give birth next year. This will mean that I will be able to sell milk, earn some more income and I will be able to pay school fees for my brother who dropped out of collage this year due to lack of school fees.

What GiveDirectly does well is giving us unconditional lump sum transfers which has made so many people in the society financially independent. This transforms to dignity among the members of the society and we are so grateful for that.

I am a single mother of one and the first born in my family. since my parents are not financially well off, all the family depend on me for school fees and basic needs. Although I was able to hustle here and there to support them, I got overwhelmed last year when my second hand clothes business that I operate was not doing well. I had started losing hope in life but thankfully, I got enrolled in to the program and got some capital which made it possible for me to open a small general shop beside my main business. With the second transfer, I spend $250 to add more stock to the shop, $200 to pay school fees for my brother and the balance to pay school fees for my child. I am so grateful that I am back to my feet and I can afford some income to continue supporting the business.

It was all happiness in my household when I received and shared the news of the received transfer. I was with my young child and other neighboring children when a message alert popped up on my phone. I had to check it immediately and could not believe my eyes. I called everyone around and when we had all confirmed, we went wild in celebration since we had been waiting for this moment. I called to make orders of the construction materials from the nearby town and after being delivered a week later, I withdrew all the received amount and paid the shop.

Even though the dairy cow I bought is not lactating at the moment, I am glad that I made to make this dream come to pass. Having additional livestock on my field is the biggest difference in my daily life, in that, I am now hopeful that I will be enjoying enough milk in the next few months when it calves down.

I had already started the construction of my house when I received the first transfer but was not complete since I run short of money in the process, GiveDirectly transfers came in handy in buying other construction materials that were still missing. With KES 10000 out of the total amount, I purchased sand, gravel, and some bags of cement that I am looking forward to using in the next few days. All other parts of the construction are complete except the floors and I am now certain that they will soon be done. I also spent KES 35000 on obtaining a dairy cow to add to the heifer that I had been rearing in my field. All along, I had been buying milk for my family of three. All this time, I had been hopeful that I will accumulate some money to buy a lactating cow but was never possible. I am grateful that GiveDirectly came in to support. I went ahead to pay KES 7000 towards the school fees for my child's school fees - KES2000 to clear the arrears and KES 5000 for the current term. I finally spent the remaining amount on obtaining household goods that we never had at the moment.