My life is different than it would have been if I never received the transfers in that I have bought three dairy cows. I used to buy milk from my neighbors daily and this is so costly. I depend on small scale farming and also do casual jobs in the village. The amount of money that I get through this is so small and cannot meet all the basic needs of my family. I was not able to save some money to buy the dairy cow. I used to wake up very early in the morning to go and get some work. This was so challenging because at some point I could not even get any. I could come home late and my family was expecting me to bring food. Currently I have three dairy cows, I get enough milk for my family daily and even sell the surplus milk at the market to earn an income to meet other household items. I am so happy because GiveDirectly has changed our living standard.I no longer get stress up on where I will get the money. I have devoted much of my time on my dairy farming. I also have time to bond with my family members unlike before.

In my opinion GiveDirectly does well by giving money to the poor in the community to build better houses and buy dairy cows. I do not find anything that GiveDirectly did not do well.

I spend the money I received from GiveDirectly on buying three dairy cows. I used to buy milk and it was so costly for me. When I received the second transfer I found it wise to buy a dairy cow to cut the daily cost of buying milk. The money that I could have used to buy milk I used it on other household daily needs.I am so much grateful for the support.

It was around 1 pm and I was on the farm doing some work when I heard an SMS notification on my phone. I decided to stop for a while and check it and to my surprise, it was the M-PESA message saying that I had received the first lumpsum from GiveDirectly. I was so happy to see this because we had been eagerly waiting for it. I informed my wife when I arrived home and she was so delighted too. We gave thanks to God because we knew that what we had always wanted to achieve was going to be fulfilled.

The transfer has brought a big difference in my life and that of my family. We now have the cows that we have always desired. We are going to rear them well and when they reproduce, we will be able to get milk that we can consume and sell some. The money from milk sales will help us with other important things like buying food or even paying for my children’s school fees when they start attending school. Having fenced my piece of land, other people’s cows will no longer be grazing on it. This will therefore enable the grass on it to grow and my cows will have something to feed on. My business of buying and selling the cows will now grow after investing more money in it. This will thus enable us to get more income.

The money from GiveDirectly has helped us in various ways. I bought two cows with part of the amount. I also used part of it in fencing my piece of land and invested the rest in my business of buying and selling cows. I have always had the desire to buy another cow after the one that we had died. This is because we do not have any milk for our consumption. We usually depend on milk that we are given at home, this has however not been enough and at times the cows are not on lactation period. Achieving this has however been hard due to a lack of enough money. The little amounts of money that I have been getting from my business have been going to the purchase of food and other necessities. I thank GiveDirectly for enabling me to achieve this dream, may God bless you abundantly.