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.

According to my opinion, what Give Directly does so well is that they give out unconditional transfers, different people have different needs, and we have the freedom how to spend the transfers so long as it is something that does not harm us together with community members. 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

Before the transfers, I never had cows before as I had no stable source of income. I used the transfers to buy female cows for kshs 35,000. This is for milk production for my family's consumption and sale. I do casual work to earn a living and most of the time the pay is too little to cater for my basic needs, I do top it up with the money from selling milk and this has enabled me to take care of other basic needs like food, clothing and kids school fees. I used the remaining part of the transfers of kshs 20,000 to buy a piece of three-seater furniture. I used to fear hosting friends and relatives as I never had enough seats for them, but my self-esteem has improved since I started receiving transfers from GiveDirectly

I was at home relaxing after I was done with the farm work. Suddenly, I heard my phone ringing. Upon confirming, I saw a Mpesa message showing that I had received money from GiveDirectly. This was the most refreshing news that I had received in a long time. I was relieved because I knew that all my goals would be settled with the cash. The transfer impacted our lives tremendously thus we are grateful.

My daily life is different now, This is because GiveDirectly was able to put a smile on my face even in my old age. My dream of owning an iron sheet house was realised in a short time. I never thought that I would have been able to realise this dream due to school fees responsibilities. At the same time, I am no longer energetic to engage in casual jobs. I am grateful for the support that lifted our living standard amazingly.

The moment I received my transfer, I prioritised building a decent house for my family where I used KES 30,000. This is because I was living in a grass-thatched house, I could not afford to build a house due to financial constraints since all my children were still schooling. Secondly, I purchased a daily cow worth KES 22,000 so has to cut down on the cost of buying milk. Lastly, I used the remaining amount in buying household items. I am happy and grateful that finally my dream has been realised with the support that I was given.