My goal was to pay dowry and take my wife to collage which I have already achieved. My new goal was to look for a reliable to support my family which I luckily got and I'm focusing on building my family.

There's nothing great than uplifting and helping those in verge of losing hope in the society and that what GiveDirectly does with a lot of passion. I urge you to keep impacting and uplifting others in the society.

Being married to my wife for four years without paying dowry to her family used to bother me a lot. I also wanted to take her to college so that she can earn livelihood skills so that she can earn herself some income there after and help each other build our family. Selling charcoal which was my main source of income wouldn't anabled me to do all this as all I used all the income that I was earning to provide for my wife and our child. I spend 30000 KES of the recent transfers to pay dowry for my wife, 12000 to pay school fees for my wife and the balance to buy food and clothing for my family. I'm happy that my wife's family don't owe me dowry and my wife will be in a position to support me with family responsibilities in future.

I was awakened by the loud vibration from my mobile phone at around 11 in the evening. Since I was so tired, I didn't bother checking where the message was from. However, after a few minutes, I recived another message that is when I became more curious and that was when I decided to read them. I did not believe what I saw, it was an Mpesa message from Segovia Technology, I had at long last received the amount of money that I was promised during the enrollment period. I was overjoyed with happiness and decided to share with my spouse and I remember we could not afford to sleep that night. It felt like a dream to us which took us days for us to accept that it was true.

The biggest difference in my daily life that I will always mention is the fact that I now have a decent house to shelter on. The previous one was very small and in a poor state. It would even collapse anytime since it had weka walls with wholes all over also its roof was dilapidated and leaking whenever it could rain. It has been tough all along and most of the days, my spouse and kid had to seek shelter from our relatives which were like a routine. This has been affecting me as the head of the family as a result of the harsh and embarrassment we have been through all along. I have however been willing to construct a better one but due to the low income that I have been earning from the odd seasonal jobs, I could not afford it. The little I could earn could only cater to the family's basic needs such as food and other expenses. I have always been optimistic that someday all the roubles shall come to an end. The story had now changed since we are now happily sleeping under a very decent house that is spacious enough. I am so grateful to GiveDirectly to be among the beneficiaries becasue were it not for them, I would still be living a miserable life.

I spent part of my forst transfer on buying a few building materials which include the iron sheets which cost KES 16200, nails at KES 2000, the building poles at a total of KES 3000, and gave the mason KES 6000. I had to prioritize the issue of housing because the previous one was very small and ut couldn't accommodate my whole family which is comprised of three members. Also, I had to store all my household items under a tree and they were always stolen and some damaged. I also bought new clothes ad shoes for my spouse and child for the Christmas celebrations. Finally, with the remaining amount of money, I bought foodstuffs such as maize flour, cereals, vegetables, and cater for the other household items that would sustain us for a couple of days. We are now happy because we no longer skip meals like before courtesy of GiveDirectly.