Every mother's greatest joy is seeing their child thrive and achieve their dreams. My son is currently in college, studying mechanical engineering, and my husband and I agreed to contribute $25 each month to support his education. So far, I have contributed $75 towards ensuring he can stay in school and pursue his goals. To ensure my family's well-being, I allocated $18 to purchase nutritious food for the week, prioritizing their health. With the remaining $9, I bought new clothes for myself. The previous ones were worn out, which often made me feel insecure. Thanks to GiveDirectly's support, I can step out confidently and feel good about my appearance.

As a mother of two children, I am deeply committed to their education despite our financial challenges. Our eldest son recently completed his Form Four, and we are grateful to God for paving the way. Currently, we are focused on supporting our other son, Karisa, to enroll and complete his education as well. Financial stability is a constant concern for us, especially since my husband's income from cutting and selling brushing sticks is not steady, and I am currently unemployed, managing our home and saving diligently from transfers to make ends meet. Our strategy involves prioritizing one child's education at a time. Right now, our primary goal is to support our eldest son through his mechanical engineering studies. We believe that once he completes his education, he will secure a good job that will enable him to support our family.

My eldest son recently enrolled in college to study Automotive Engineering after dropping out of secondary school due to a significant debt. We were encouraged by the fact that four members of our family are beneficiaries of this program. This means that by pooling our resources together, we can raise the money needed for his fees and other school expenses. Unfortunately, he did not have the chance to return to high school promptly to complete his education because we had to prioritize putting his younger brother through high school. His younger brother finished high school last year, which opened up the opportunity for him to go back to school. Instead of returning to high school, he chose to pursue training in Automotive Engineering, a decision we fully supported. When I receive my monthly transfers, I allocate a portion, approximately $25, which is combined with contributions from my husband and children. This money is then used to cover the college expenses of my son who is in college. Whatever is left from the transfers is then used to meet other basic household needs, such as purchasing food.

I am deeply saddened that one of my sons could not finish high school due to financial constraints. Now that he has chosen to pursue training in automotive engineering, I am determined to support him through the transfers so he can complete his training and gain the skills necessary for a good job in the future. Currently, I do not have any source of income besides subsistence farming, as my previous business collapsed. However, I believe the transfers will enable me to support my son's aspirations. My plan is to allocate at least $20 of my monthly transfers towards his education. Additionally, I will try to save some of what's left, around $5, to eventually revive my sardine business, which folded months ago. Reviving this business will help me expand my financial resources and be able to support my family better as the younger son will also need to join college soon.

As the main provider for my family, my husband earns a living by cutting and selling chewing sticks. However, the income from this work is insufficient to cover all our household needs, including food and school fees for our son, Karisa, who is in form four. Ever since our child started high school, paying his tuition has been a constant challenge, and the debts from his first year have been piling up. I'm delighted that thanks to the cash transfers, I can allocate $20 every month to reduce the tuition balance. I'm grateful because he hasn't missed any school days so far, and he is approaching his final days of secondary education.  From the most recent transfer, I also spent $12 to hire an ox-plow to prepare my half-acre of land for planting as the rainy season has started. Additionally, I used $6.5 to purchase a new pair of khanga clothes, as I had been wearing the same one repeatedly. Now I have two pairs. The remaining amount was used to help cover our family's food expenses.

My current top priority is to ensure that my two sons, Kahindi and Karisa, can attend college by contributing to their school fees. My older son, Kahindi, had to drop out during his third year of high school over three years ago due to a lack of funds. Currently, our goal is to send him to a local college so he can acquire skills to support himself financially. Our other son, Karisa, is about to take his national high school exams, and it is time to start thinking about funding his college education. Once my boys are settled in school, I hope to begin building a new house. I've been living in my son's structure ever since mine collapsed due to strong winds about three years ago. I would be delighted to construct a three-room house to provide my son with the privacy he needs in his own house.

Before Givedirectly enrolled us, my son was on the verge of quitting school due to the accumulation of unpaid school fees, just like his older brother. It seemed like a divine intervention when the day he was asked to leave school coincided with the day we were enrolled in Givedirectly. Since then, I have been contributing an additional $20 per month on top of his own payments to gradually pay off the outstanding fees, following an agreement we reached with the school. I'm grateful that we have managed to reduce the balance to $100, and we hope to clear it soon. Additionally, I used $10 for his rent and the remaining amount was spent on food.

I have two main objectives in the near future. Firstly, I am focused on ensuring that my son successfully completes his final year of secondary school by taking care of his school fees and providing him with all the necessary materials for his education. Additionally, I am determined to secure a new home for our family since we are currently residing in a cramped one-room accommodation that belongs to our son. Our previous house was unfortunately destroyed by strong winds due to its age, and thus it is essential for us to rebuild and improve our living situation.

I have a child in form form four and we have been trying to get him through school but I have not had a source of income and my husbands business has not been doing so well as to take care of this school fee needs. I have been setting a portion of this transfers to go into school fees payments monthly. In December I spent $25 on school fees, while in January I spent $20 and February I spent $15 on school fees. We are also paying rent for him for the place he stays when he is school, in January we both gave $5 each for this purpose. I have also been buying maize flour for the home and other food items using this transfers as we now fully rely on bought food. I spent $9 in December on food and $3 in January and $4 in February. My son said he needed a smart phone for purposes of school so I saved $15 from my February transfers so that once we have the full amount we can purchase him the phone.

As I said earlier my husband is our sole breadwinner since I do not have a job, however his earnings are not sufficient for to take care of all the needs and most times we are forced to make choices of whats important. Our house was recently blown away by the wind and we could not salvage it. We had to move into my son's sma;; house that he had built to live since our finances were not sufficient to build a new house. My hope this year is to build a house for my family since where we are staying belongs to my son and when he finishes school he will need somewhere to stay.

Financial constraint is one problem faced by my family due to lack of employment. I am married with two sons and my husband works as a hawker selling local toothbrushes (sourced from twigs) which is barely earning much to sustain the family. From time to time have tried to work as a charcoal burner even so in vain. The cost of living has gone up and so one of my sons dropped from high school because I could not afford to have them both in high school. When I got enrolled, it was a miracle at the right time because I was at a point in my life where he had given up and was in denial about the idea of both my sons not completing their high school education. Luckily, after receiving the funds, I paid $20 as school fees and they accepted one of my sons back to school. The other $10 was all consumed to buy food for the family, which would last the next two weeks. I am so grateful to GiveDirectly because as of now at least one of my sons is back at school.

GiveDirectly did well because I have lived with the pain of being unable to give my sons the education they deserve. The support of the monthly transfers is the only reason my son today is in school and even though thou have not yet taken my other son back to school, the duration of the support program has given me hope to do things differently. I am deeply indebted to all the donors in GiveDirectly.

Schools had resumed from a mid-term break the previous day before I received the transfer. My son, currently in high school, had not returned to school with his peers because his father was yet to raise stipend money. So, I gave him KES 500 from the transfer to use as pocket money at school. Also, my family had slept hungry the previous night because of a lack of funds for food. I utilized KES 360 to buy enough food that lasted till yesterday while my spouse raised more through his business of selling chewing sticks in Mombasa. Finally, I used the remaining amount to buy a solar lamp. The kerosene lamp we usually used was broken. Besides, buying paraffin every day was costly. At least we have sufficient lighting in the house now that we do not have to ever pay for it.

My son, who is in high school, was supposed to resume his studies, after a mid-term break, the day before the transfer. Since there was no money to give him for his school expenses, he had to stay home until the day his father would be successful in his business of selling chewing sticks. To be honest, the cash transfer’s timing was perfect. Getting my child back to school in time is the greatest difference created by the cash transfer. Thank you Give Directly.

On the evening of last Thursday, I was relaxing at home with my son catching up and sharing our day's experiences when his phone rang with a message alert. Upon checking its contents, he realized that some money had been sent. We both suspected that somebody may have mistakenly sent him the cash because we were not expecting Give Directly’s transfers that day. By that time, my phone’s battery had run out of power. So, my son replaced it with his battery and switched it on, only for a message to appear confirming that I had also received the money. It was from Give Directly! Am loss for words to describe the happiness I felt.