My current goal is to construct a new kitchen for our home. The previous one collapsed due to heavy rainfall in our area. I intend to utilize my transfers to facilitate this rebuilding process. A new kitchen will not only provide ample storage for our harvest but also offer a better space for preparing meals for my family. I am deeply grateful for all the support this organization has provided us, enabling us to improve our living conditions and secure a brighter future for our family.

I sell charcoal while my husband works as a casual laborer in Mombasa to provide for our family of eight. Our lives have significantly improved since we began receiving these transfers. This initiative has enabled me to undertake various essential tasks, such as renovating our house, purchasing goats, and covering school fees for our children. As a beneficiary, I find immense happiness in being able to support my family. With the funds received, I invested $30 in a new mattress to replace our worn-out one, and I also spent $4 on clothing for my children. Additionally, $34 was utilized to purchase building poles to repair our roof, which had collapsed due to strong winds. The remaining $34 was allocated to pay a technician to carry out the necessary house repairs. Being involved in this program fills me with joy as it has uplifted our living standards.

I plan to acquire bulls and start rearing them. I'll be renting them out for income generation and also use them to plough our two-acre farm, further enhancing our food production. With this additional income, I hope to ensure that my children's school fees are consistently covered. Our current house is far too small for our family's needs. In the coming year, I intend to build a larger and more comfortable home for my family. These are my aspirations for the year ahead and beyond, with the cash support I'm receiving, our lives will be better and more secure.

I'm currently at home, and I do not have a job. My husband, on the other hand, works as a casual laborer, but his earnings are not sufficient as these jobs are never guaranteed. During the rainy seasons, I spend time on the farm, plowing to secure food for my family of eight. I have six children, three of whom are in school. Receiving GiveDirectly transfers has been a huge relief, and I am determined to make the most out of it for my family's future. I used $42 to pay my children's school fees, ensuring they no longer miss school due to a lack of fees. With the remaining $60, I decided to buy three goats with the hope of rearing them and later exchanging some of them for bulls. These bulls will be a source of income generation when we rent them out and will also help us plow our two-acre farm. It's incredible to see how positively our lives have changed since I started receiving the unconditional cash transfer.

My main goal is to have a livestock-rearing project. With my previous transfers, I have managed for far to buy a few livestock and I still hope to have more. I would want to venture into such a project so that whenever I am faced with financial challenges, I would sell some and have enough money to cater to the needs. I plan to save part of my transfers and be buying the livestock after every two months.

The transfers that I have been receiving from GiveDirectly had been of great help owing to the fact that I have a large family of 8 and, in addition, my husband and I also do not have a reliable source of income. In recent months, we have been experiencing long rains and we thought that it would be good if we engaged in farming so that, we do not run out of food in the near future, but I had no money to cater for that. But upon receiving the money, I managed to do farming with $20 of the transfers and also bought food for my family worth $14.70 since the stock that I had was already depleted. I felt so happy and grateful for the support.

Before GD came I used to hunt for tree stumps to make charcoal, it is not an easy task. I would hunt and would only come by these stumps rarely and I could only make $8 from a stump. Now I am receiving a significant transfer amount from Givedirectly. I am able to use this money to buy animals and my hope is to increase them to a point I can own goats and cows. I have now 10 chicken which some have young ones while others do not. My hope is they increase in number and then I can sell them off and afford buying a goat of a cow. Keeping animals will be a good investment for me and my family.

I have been able to become a chicken farmer courtesy of GD transfers. I used my December, January and February transfers to get some chicken, in December and January I was getting them at $4 but in February they had become a bit expensive and I was now buying at $5. I was also able to make some dressed for my daughters over the holidays at $9. my family has had food due to GD transfers. I used about $21 for food in December, while in January I used $8 for food and in February I used #10. My children were also able to go to school as I used $14 in January and $5 in February to pay school fees.

Give Directly has done well in giving out monthly transfers. The duration at which we were all enrolled is quite a long time, which will enable most of the villagers to change their lifestyles. Personally, in the next five years, I intend to have several chickens and goats which at the moment I do not have

I am married with six children. They employed my husband as a housekeeper in a different town from where we live. He comes once a month because of his job. He earns below $80, which is not enough to pay school fees for our four children at school and meet other basic needs. I am unemployed and depend on my husband for all financial support. As soon as I received my funds, I used $20 to pay school fees because they had sent home the children because of the outstanding fee balance. The remaining cash bought food for the family because we were out of food and my husband was still away.

Last Thursday, around 9 p.m., I was relaxing in my house when I received a message alert on my mobile phone. Upon checking its contents, I realized that Give Directly had sent my first cash transfer. I was swept by a wave of excitement for I knew the money would help relive the hardships, like hunger, that my family faced at the time.  

The ability to pay school fees for my two primary school children is the most significant milestone brought about by the transfer. My spouse had not raised enough money from his house construction hustle to cover these arrears. However, the transfers alleviated this strain, and my children cheerfully resumed their studies. Am similarly glad for they have not been sent home again ever since.

My husband, a construction worker, is the sole breadwinner for our family. However, his tasks rarely come by, forcing him to work only twice a week for KES 500 per day. This income barely puts food on the table for our seven children or pay their school fees on time. In fact, two of them had been sent home to collect overdue tuition fees when I received the transfer. In addition, my family had gone to bed hungry the night before because we didn't have enough money to buy food. As a result, I paid off my children's KES 2,000 fee balances and used KES 1,000 to buy food that has lasted us until now.