My life is different than how it would have been if I never received the transfers in that I have bought two dairy cows. The reasons why I made this decision to invest on dairy farming is because I used to buy milk daily and this was so costly for me. I depend on small scale farming and the harvest that we usually get is so small and it was only for consumption. I was forces to sell some maize at some point to earn an income to meet other basic household needs including paying school fees for my children. This was a huge task for me since I had no other source of income. Currently I no longer buy milk and the amount of money that I could have used on buying milk I saved to pay the school fees for my children. I have devoted much of my time on my dairy farming project because this is the main source of income now. My family has enough milk and I sell the rest to pay school fees for my children. I am so happy because GiveDirectly has enabled us to invest on this amazing dairy project.

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

I spend part of the money I received from GiveDirectly on buying two dairy cows. This has always been my wish because I used to occur a lot of expenses on buying milk daily. I also build a better house for my family. The house we had was so small and could not host all the family comfortably. The rest of the money I paid school fees and bought food. My children are no longer sent home to collect the school fees and this improved their performance compared to the previous terms. I am so grateful for the support because GiveDirectly has changed our living standard.

I was filled with excitement when I received the message saying that I had received the lump sum transfer from GiveDirectly. I immediately informed my family and they were too very happy to hear the good news. We started planning together on what we are going to do with it and for the first time, I felt my dreams coming true.

Having bought this cow, I will be able to get milk that my family can consume. I will no longer have to buy milk and hence we will be able to save money. The calves that the cow will reproduce, I will take care of them and when they mature, I will sell them in the future and use the money on other things such as starting a business or buying more land. This is the same as the goats, I will take care of them and when they will have multiplied, I will sell some of them and use the money on other important things. I have been living in a grass-thatched house for so long and so I decided that with this transfer, I will build a new house roofed with iron sheets. This way, we will be able to collect rainwater and my family will have water for their household use. With this new house too, my children will have enough space to study. May God bless GiveDirectly for what they have done to me and my family.

The transfer helped me in a lot of ways. I bought a cow with part of the transfer and I am currently building another house for my family. I also bought two goats with the money and a bag of maize for my family. The bag of maize will serve as food for my family and I will no longer have to worry about what they are going to eat for some time. I have always wanted to have my own cow and build another house for my family but due to lack of enough money, I have not been able to. The money that I have been getting, a very big part of it, I have been using it to cater to my children’s’ school fees. This has therefore made it difficult for me to do other things and I have kept postponing doing the said projects. When we received the lump sum amount from GiveDirectly, we saw the opportunity to have what we have always wanted. Thank you GiveDirectly for making for fulfilling our dreams.