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.

In my opinion, what Give Directly does so well is that they give out unconditional transfers, different people have different needs and therefore it would be of no importance if the transfers had any restrictions on the spending patterns. 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 parent of five children. Two are in Secondary School, a boy and a girl, while the other is in college studying Information Technology in his first year. I used a total of kshs 20,000 to clear their school fees arrears that have accumulated for the past year. Before the transfers, I was living in a small grass-thatched house and it could not fit all my family members. The boys used to sleep in my neighbour's house and this was so inconvenient as they could go so early due to insecurity in my community as most homes do not have access to electricity. I used the remaining part of the transfers of kshs 30,000 to build a spacious decent house for my family. I am so grateful to GiveDirectly transfers.

I was very happy when I first confirmed that the message that I received was fromGiveDirectly and was confirming the receipt of the first transfer. It was around 5:00 pm as I was heading home from the usual casual labor that I had been doing. I could not wait to inform my family members the good news that I had received the transfer. On arriving home, I shared the news that excited everyone in the family.

The biggest difference in my daily life is the clearance of the school fees for all my three children in secondary school without having to sell a heifer that I had planned to sell. It even got better when I brought in another heifer after clearing the school fees as this is an investment that will provide future financial security.

Upon withdrawal of the first transfer, I spent KES 27500 on purchasing a heifer that is now an addition to the herd I had been keeping. Some years back, I had many livestock on my field but the obligation to pay school fees for my three children in secondary school. I also had to pay ahead to the three children's tuition fees of KES 20000 to allow me to work on other long-term projects as I raise more savings towards settling the school fees in the future. I also obtained a 90-kilogram bag of maize at KES 3200 and school uniforms for two children worth KES 3000. I am now hopeful that I will do a lot more with the second transfer once I receive the second transfer.