Our new goal is to struggle to get money for sending our son to college once he completes his secondary education. He is currently sitting for his final national examinations at secondary school. We also have a goal of building him a sleeping house. He is getting older and he does not have a place of his own. He hence usually goes to sleep at his sister's house when she is away. We thus see it appropriate for him to have one.

GiveDirectly did well by coming to the households and enrolling people at their homes. This way they got to enroll the right people, that is, the ones that usually live in the village of interest. They also taught us well in the meeting that they held with the community members. I do not see anything wrong with the way they conduct their work.

We spent most of our recent transfer money on improving the house that we are living in. We had managed to build the house before but we did not place the ceiling boards because the money was not enough. We bought the wooden frames and the ceiling boards which were quite costly. Other than that, we also spent KES 10000 on doing electrical wiring in our house. We had managed to pull electricity to our home but we had not done the wiring because the electrical materials are very expensive and we did not have the money. As a result, we used to use solar lamps for lighting at night which were not efficient since they could at times go off and some school-going children still have to study. We are glad because the house now looks good and there is enough lighting for the children to study well. We also bought a calf at KES 15000 with part of the transfer money. We bought the calf to add to the cows that we have so that it can help us in the future when it calves. We usually practice mixed farming where we usually grow maize and beans and rear cows. We usually supply milk to the school where our child is studying and through doing so we get to pay for the school fees. We also at times supply the maize and beans from our harvest or we sell them to get money for paying school fees. There are still two of them in secondary school. With the remaining amount of money, we used it in buying 12 cushions at KES 350 per cushion for the chairs.

It was around 9:00 am and I was busy milking the cow. I had my phone with me since I had heard people saying that they had started receiving the transfers. I was hence eagerly waiting for it. Just as I was going about with the job, I heard my phone ringing notifying me of a new message. I checked it and indeed it was the SMS saying that I had received the promised transfer from GiveDirectly. I was so happy and I gave thanks to God for the help as I went about with what I was doing. I could not keep the good news to myself and I called unto my immediate neighbor telling her that the money had been sent. She confirmed that she had received it too and we celebrated together. I then informed my husband when I got to the house. He was so happy too and he asked me to prepare myself so that I could go withdraw the money.

The transfer from GiveDirectly has brought a very big difference in our lives. We were able to clear the school fees balances for our children and hence we no longer have to worry about where to get the money to do so. We were also able to achieve our dream of acquiring another cow and hence we are happy because the cow is going to be of great benefit to us when it calves. Thank you so much GiveDirectly for the support.

I spent most of the transfer money on buying a cow. I bought the cow at a cost of KES 22000. We are farmers and we mostly depend on the sale of milk to earn a living. We usually rear two cows and we wanted to buy one more to increase our milk production. The cow that we bought has not yet calved but we expect that it is going to be of great benefit to us in future when it calves since we will be able to get more milk for sale. This will hence result in more income for making other developments such as paying school fees for our children. We usually supply two litres of milk to the school where our child is and this usually acts as a form of payment of the school fees. Maize does not usually do well most of the time and hence we mostly depend on milk and beans as sources of income for paying the school fees for our children. We were not able to buy the cow before because we didn't have the money and hence we are so grateful to GiveDirectly because they enabled us to achieve our goal.