In the coming year and beyond, I am planning to start up a small business of selling groceries. I have been engaging in rearing livestock but this has not been doing well especially during drought. I had engaged in groceries business before and it used to pick up so well, although it collapsed during the Covid19 pandemic as I had to use all the profits since I never had any source of income. I also have plans of venturing into subsistence farming like growing maize, cabbages and potatoes, I will be hiring a tractor, instead of doing it by casual workers as I will have bought a larger piece of land by then. I will be supplying the excess farm produce to boarding schools in my community for easy transportation.

In my opinion, what Give Directly does so well is the fact that they give out unconditional transfers, different people have different needs and therefore it would be of no importance if the transfers had any restrictions on the spending patterns. Another thing that is done perfectly is the fact that the transfers are given in lump sum amounts and this helps in planning purposes in terms of the developments that the recipients would wish to engage in at a personal level. Unlike other projects where it is given in small amounts. To avoid household conflict, what needs to be done differently is enrolling all the individuals in the household. During enrollment, those individuals who did not have responsibilities by then were left out of the program yet these are the same people who steal from their old and vulnerable parents. Another thing that needs to be done differently is enrolling all the communities in a specific village for uniformity purposes and this will prevent too many complaints coming from the communities that are left out during the registration to the programs

Before the transfers, I never had cows before as I had no source of income. I used the transfers to buy female cows for kshs 35,000. I decided to buy female cows for milk production for my family's consumption and sale. I do casual work to earn a living and most of the time the pay is too little to cater for my basic needs, I do top it up with the money from selling milk and this has enabled me to take care of other basic needs like food, clothing and kids school fees. I used the remaining part of the transfers to buy a piece of three-seater furniture. I used to fear hosting friends and relatives as I never had enough seats for them, but my self-esteem has improved since I started receiving transfers from GiveDirectly.

It felt good to receive the first transfer, knowing that I would prioritize buying food over paying school fees for my children. I had a lot of plans, including investing in livestock and finishing the construction of my new house. I was alone at home when I received the money because my husband was at work, and he was overjoyed when I told him over the phone. We had a lot on our wish list, and we have always talked whenever we are picking a new item on our list. 

Since the first transfer, my family's standard of living has changed dramatically. I am overjoyed that, after paying their school fees, my children are now settled in and attending all classes with the other students. This has been the most noticeable difference in my daily life, as I was used to seeing them being sent home more frequently to collect tuition arrears. They are also enjoying a plentiful supply of food at home, which was not the case in the months preceding the first transfer, when we could skip a meal or two every day.

My four children are in primary school, and the oldest is in secondary school. Paying their school fees has never been easy, and I am grateful for GiveDirectly's support. I had to pay $50 for all my four primary school children and clear $90 in secondary school arrears. I also spent $105 on three goats that I intend to sell later with their offspring to pay for my children's school fees and other new projects. At the time of my first transfer, I was working on a construction project and needed to spend $143 on six bags of cement and a door to complete it. Even though it is not yet finished, I am hopeful that I will be able to finish the remaining parts before moving in when I receive the second transfer. Furthermore, I spent $10 on school uniforms for my two children, $60 on household foodstuffs, and saved the rest, which I am still using to check and replenish household goods.