My desire is for me to be able to build a decent house for my family. I plan to achieve this goal through mary go round contributions from the village enterprises plus the profit from the cereal business. I believe that with determination and discipline all will be accomplished.

The best thing that GiveDirectly gave us is the freedom to choose for ourselves how we would use our transfers. My village has been transformed and empowered. In that, the children are comfortably studying in their respective schools, people built new houses and many other good things. Throughout my interaction with the GiveDirectly staff, I have not seen anything that was not done well.

I am a mother of two children and a businesswoman specialising in buying and selling maize. Upon receiving my transfer, I used KES 25,000 in purchasing a dairy cow to cut the cost of buying milk daily. Secondly, I used KES 10,000 on paying school fees for my children and lastly I used the remaining amount on clothes and foodstuffs. I had a cow before but I was forced to sell it due to school fees responsibility. I am happy that GiveDirectly gave me the chance to replace it.

It had been quite a wait when I finally received a message from GiveDirectly that confirmed the receipt of the transfer I had been anticipating. I did not doubt at all when the huge figure of KES55000 amidst the message since I had been holding on to the faith that I will soon be able to start the projects I had planned. I proceeded to withdraw the whole transfer on the following day since all the shops in the nearby town where I could access the transfer on the first day were all flooded by people.

After a long struggle fetching water from the river for my household that would take much of my time, I am glad to have purchased a large water tank that has so far brought the biggest difference in my daily life. I no longer have to walk a long distance to fetch water from the river but instead, I had been efficiently collecting the rain water from the roof. This is clean water safer compared to the river I had been visiting where people would bath and wash their clothes upstream while we fetch with our pots downstream.

Fetching water every morning from a far-distant river had been so devastating given that all my children wake up to go to school and need enough water every day. Even though the river we are dependent on has plenty of water, it also contains lots of dirt since everyone washes their linens in their every day making the water unsafe for drinking. On receiving the first transfer, I am glad to have bought a 3000-liter plastic water tank at KES22000 that will be a reservoir every time it rains. This will drastically reduce the trips to the river and also avails clean water reducing the risk of predisposition to waterborne diseases. I also spent KES10000 of the remaining on paying school fees for my two daughters who are currently in grades nine and ten. I managed to add some food to our food baskets after buying two sacks of maize at KES6000 and spent the remaining on adding goods to my small cereals business that I had been running in the nearby shopping center. I am grateful to GiveDirectlly for the great support that I received that has given me hope of doing much greater things with the second transfer.