Upon succeeding in my previous goal of building a house, I had no option but to develop a new goal of focusing on my children's education. All my three children are bright as they always do well in school. However, being a widow without any source of income, they are occasionally sent home for fees thus they miss some lessons. To curb this and give them an enabling environment for learning, I have a goal of refocusing on how to raise their school fees. With part of the savings I had made from the transfer, I am hopeful that they will suffer from minimal disruption. Thanks to GiveDirectly for such kind help.

In my observation, the GiveDirectly model of giving us direct and unconditional cash is a good practice that makes us at liberty to use our transfer to meet our immediate needs. Through financial aid, there is a great relief in our society. Many of us, who are widows and have been struggling even to raise school fees for our children, or never had any source of income are currently feeling good. In addition, the NGO does well in putting in place safety mechanisms to ensure that we, the beneficiaries are not prone to theft. It does this by sending cash through a Mpesa platform, and by doing regular follow-ups to determine the impact of the transfer in our lives. So far, there is nothing that I have witnessed that GiveDirectly does not do well.

With the first transfer, I managed to buy some building materials because I did not have a house. Therefore, as soon as I confirmed my second transfer, I opted to spend KES 20,000 on buying additional building materials and building a house. Previously, I was living in a small kitchen because my house collapsed a few years after my husband died. I had been too poor to raise money to build a new house, a situation that forced me to resolve to sleep in a kitchen together with my three children. However, things have changed, I am feeling better because I have a spacious two-roomed house. This would have not come to pass without GiveDirectly's transfer.

It was around 6 PM when I was from my neighbor's compound when I saw two unread message notifications on my cellphone. I was very curious since I was not expecting to hear from any of my friends. Upon opening them, I confirmed that they were from Segovia technology. I had finally received my cash transfer. I was overwhelmed with joy and I remember informing all my family members about the great news. We assembled and started celebrating till dawn.

The biggest difference in my daily life that I can proudly mention is that I now have goats in my homestead. I have been longing to have them for years but due to the financial constraints that I was facing, I couldn't afford them. I however settled for them because they can survive very well in my region, also they reproduce and grow very fast compared to the other domestic animals. Currently gave started reproducing which is an assurance that soon I will own a herd. I am planning to exchange some for dairy cows and educate my children to achieve their goals. Since I am a widow of five children, with a very low income, the goats will empower me enough in raising the fees and meeting household expenses.

I spent around KES 20000 of my first transfer on buying building materials such as bags of cement bricks and sand. This was purposely for the renovation of my house since it had weak walls and holes all over. I was always worried that it would collapse especially during the winter seasons. Later in I purchased a sewing machine at KES 18000 for my daughter since she has been hiring those of her friends which was a bit expensive. In addition, I bought four goats at KES 10000 which serve as valuable assets that I can now depend on. With the remaining amount of money, I bought foodstuff and decent clothing for my five children.