For the longest time, I was worried if my two sons who recently graduated from primary school would make to high school as their father who is the primary earner of the family makes and sells local beer.This business has been greatly affected by severe drought as most coconut trees which he makes the beer from has dried up due to prevailing drought. When I was enrolled in the program, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, my eyes were now wide opened and my hope was restored. I can't imagine the joy of supporting my children achieve their dreams through making their transition from primary to higher learning a success. When I started receiving the transfers, I committed to saving KES 1500 monthly in a sacco towards their school fees. I have now saved KES 9000 and I will be eligible to borrow money to pay school fees when my sons will be joining high school soon. For the most recent transfers I spend KES 1500 to buy food and saved the balance. I'm so grateful for the continued support.

In my opinion, GiveDirectly does well in terms of helping the needy in the society. I am very optimistic that in the near future my life will turn for the better and I will have a stable source of income. I will be able to pay school fees for my children and also provide them with good food.

I am happy that I was registered into the program. I mostly depend on farming for my daily to day survival. When our area stopped receiving rain for the past two years, everything became very difficult for me. I started lacking food which I would originally get from my farm. In terms of my other needs I would sell the agricultural produce from my farm and earn a living. Currently this is not the case and I have been really struggling for the better part of last year. When I received the first transfer, I spent half of it in paying school fees dues for my children who are still in school. I spent the rest of the amount in buying food for the family. When I received my second transfer, I again spent KSH 1000 to pay school fees dues for my children. Due to the tough times I am currently experiencing I did accumulate some debts worth KSH 1000 and I had to pay them off using the money from the transfer. Towards the end of the year we started to experience some light showers and with the condition with my roof I decided to spend the remaining KSH 1000 to buy the coconut leaves and used them to make some Makuti which I used to repair my leaking roof.

I had no idea that I had actually received the money until my children arrived from school and informed me that they had heard around the village that people had received the funds from GiveDirectly and that is when I requested them to go through my phone and I had actually received the money. I was so happy to be honest because I did not expect it at all.

Through the funds I managed to pay my debt with school and my children were able to resume to class and I also managed to buy food and put on the table which was very important since I wanted to avoid my children going to bed hungry.

I happen to have five school going children but at that moment my two of my children had been home three days after being sent back home from school due to pending balances in tuition fee. Therefore after I received the money I paid KES 600 to the school to be split equally among my two kids. Since we barely had any food in the house I decide to buy five packets of maize four at KES 500 so that we could at least have a meal in the house.