I do subsistence farming for a living. In the coming year and beyond, I am planning to hire a piece of land as the one I have is smaller in size. I will be hiring labour so as to save on the time wastage. I have been doing it with my two sons who are still schooling and it could take us a whole month to complete a piece of land. In addition to this, I will be opening up a new business of groceries to be operated by my wife. The business will specifically be taking care of the family's basic needs like food and clothing.

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

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.

I was very happy when I received the first transfer from GiveDirectly.The receipt of the message made my morning different from any other day. It was around 9:00 am when I noticed that message and this was only after getting a call from a friend who asked me whether I had checked my phone. After confirming, I informed my wife whom we agreed to collect the full amount from the nearby shopping center three days later.

The biggest difference in my daily life is the great joy of clearing my children's school fees and the rejuvenated hope of pursuing my career further after collecting my certificate. I am glad that the support came in when I needed it the most and clearing the debts and the current term in school relieved me of the immense burden I was struggling with.

On receiving the first transfer, it was a relief to my family in that two children in secondary school needed a vast sum that we could not raise from the small-scale farming and the casual labor we had been doing. I spent KES 45000 on clearing all the arrears and current semesters for the two and I am happy that they are enjoying ample study time in school at the moment. Previously, I was also pursuing a certification course in veterinary, and after my graduation; I could not collect the certificates that would have allowed me to apply for internships because of the arrears that I had. The remaining amount was also instrumental in the clearance and I am glad that I now have my certificate and am looking forward to securing an internship position soon. I am grateful to GiveDirectly for this timely support.