My community Kilifi is a very dry place. Vegetables are very rare as most of the time there are no rain. I have a plan of starting up a small business selling small fish, locally known as (Omena). Besides this, I am also planning to start up a business selling water to my community members. I will be installing a water tank for collection during the rainy season and this will be sold later during the drought season.

According to my opinion, what Give Directly does so well is that they give out unconditional transfers, different people have different needs, and we have the freedom how to spend the transfers so long as it is something that does not harm us together with community members. The transfers are given in lump sum amounts and this helps in planning purposes in terms of the developments that we 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

I am a widowed parent of eight children below the ages of eighteen years old.Before the transfer, I never had a modern house, I owned a small grass-thatched house which was leaking during the rainy season. I thank Give Directly for the transfers as I managed to build a three-bedroom modern house for kshs 50,000. Initially, I never had peace of mind as it was so tiresome moving some of my valuable items during the rainy season, my young boys too never had adequate space to spend their nights and this was so stressful as they could sleep in a neighbour's house. My peace of mind is finally restored since I built a house. Getting a balanced and regular meal had been the most difficult thing for my young family of three. I used the whole balance of kshs 5000 to stock food for an entire month. We are very grateful for the transfers

It was exactly 7 am when I was at the water station waiting to fetch water for my family's consumption. I heard the news about the transfer from my neighbors who had received the transfer that morning. Being among the people who were enrolled in the program, I had a lot of thoughts in mind that I was not lucky. Shortly, I received two consecutive messages on my phone. I was interested to know its content. Upon checking, I learned that I had received my transfer. I was extremely happy about receiving the transfer.

Being able to support the education of my grandchildren who were left under my care after their father died and their mother opted to remarry to another man due to the poverty at my home is the biggest difference in my life. I am optimistic that their lives will be better after they complete school. Nowadays, I am enjoying a peaceful state of mind not worrying about the education fate of my grandchildren.

I spent KES 10,000 of my transfer to purchase 15 bags of cement and water. Also, I paid labor charges that cost KES 7,000 for making bricks. My goal was to construct a spacious house for my family of 8 members since the one I had was very small to fully accommodate us and our household properties. In addition, I bought sufficient food for KES 6,600. Similarly, I support the education of my 5 grandchildren by paying their fees arrears of KES 10,000. At the moment, they were able to resume their studies and are happy that they are learning with any disruption. Moreover, I bought a variety of household utensils like plates and cups. Lastly, I saved KES 12,000 which will assist me in educating my senior grandchild who is in form 2.