Once I am done building my house, I am planning to save some money from burning and selling charcoal so that I can set up a local green groceries shop. Achieving this means that I will be earning more money besides selling charcoal and therefore, I will be able to help my husband with family responsibilities and take my children to better schools.

What GiveDirectly does well is believing that, people who live in poverty understands their priority of needs. With the cash transfers, people made different choices whereby some bought domestic animals, others built house, paid school fees, etc. Cash empowers people in different ways and therefore changes lives of many.

Although my husband is a mason, we have been living in a single muddy house with our three children because we couldn't afford to buy material to build a more permanent house. The fact that we live in a area where majority of people live below poverty line, my husband has not been able to get meaningful projects because most people temporary structures that do not pay much to build. The little that he earns goes to basic needs and education for our children and we are left with nothing to save towards building a better and bigger house. When I received my first transfer, I bought some building materials and for the second transfer, I spend $ 430 towards building our two bedroom house. I also spend $30 to buy goat, $45 to clear fees arrears and $25 to buy food for my family. Hopefully, in the next two months we will be moving in our permanent two bedroom house and I am so thankful to GiveDirectly for the financial support.

I felt so happy the moment I received money from GiveDirectly. It was around 3:00 pm that day when I heard my phone ring and upon checking, I was met with a pleasant surprise. It was a message from GiveDirectly confirming that I had received a sum of $550. I felt so happy and the first person that I shared this with was my husband who was not at home as at that time. I made a call and shared the good news with him. He was so elated to hear this too. We felt so happy as a family that we were finally going to be able to afford a piece of land that we had always wanted to buy and accomplish much more things. Relying on my husband's masonry work and my charcoal selling business could only provide us with just enough to feed our families and not much more to do bigger investments.

There has been a lot of positive change that came about as a result of receiving this transfer. Most important of all these changes is the peace of mind that came with it. I feel very peaceful and happy seeing the investments that I have made with GiveDirectly funds. Buying a piece of land, getting a bed and a mattress for my children and even the food that I bought makes me so happy. I no longer have to go out for long hours to do the casual jobs and charcoal selling that I normally do just go make ends meet. I was also able to clear some little amount of pending school fees for one of my children and all these brought so much relief for us as a family. I feel so much happy and indebted to GiveDirectly for enabling me accomplish all these.

We used $250 to pay partly for a piece of land that we bought and used another $100 to buy food for our family. Another $100 was used to buy a bed and a mattress while we still have the remaining $150 which we are planning to use to buy pieces of iron sheets that will help us build a new house. For a long time, we had thought of purchasing our own piece of land but due to the nature of work that gives us income, this had not materialized until we received the transfer from GiveDirectly. Our children will now have a place where they call home away from the community land that we now stay in. This piece of land will also be of great benefit to us in future when we start business in it. As for the pieces of iron sheets, we made a decision to buy them so that we can improve our house by adding one extra room for our children. It is meant to create space for the bed that we bought and to the room shall be used by our three children. This will not only create more space for us as a family, but also ensure that we have privacy within our household. We are so happy and grateful as a family for the investments that we have been able to make as a family and even for the food that we bought in bulk- it gave us time to relax and have a peace of mind at home.