I am thrilled about the coming year and beyond because I have big dreams for my family and our future. Thanks to the support from GiveDirectly, I want to buy more goats. Currently, I have seven goats, but I want to expand our herd to improve our livelihood. My children will finish school by the end of this year, which means I can start saving $20 every month from next year. With these savings, I plan to buy more goats and gradually build a larger herd. This will not only provide us with a steady income but also ensure we have enough resources to support ourselves in the long term.

I am a widow with two young children, and life has been a series of challenges. To provide for my family, I rely on casual jobs like burning charcoal. With the three most recent transfers amounting to $102, I prioritized my children's education, especially my daughter, Riziki, who is in her last year of secondary school. I used $20 to pay her school fees, ensuring she had the opportunity to finish her education and build a brighter future for herself and our family. With the remaining money, I made two crucial investments. Recognizing the need for a sustainable income source, I invested $45 in purchasing a goat, adding to the six I already had. This is part of my long-term strategy to improve our financial stability through goat keeping. As the trees for charcoal burning are becoming scarce, my primary source of income is dwindling, making it more important than ever to diversify. Additionally, I decided to spend $37 on a stock of food for my family. This ensures that we have enough to eat and can face the coming weeks without the constant worry of where our next meal will come from.

I have always hoped to help my 2 children to finish school, not just finish but also be successful in their studies so that they secure jobs in the future and relieve me of the responsibilities, which I believe will one day come to pass through the help that GiveDirectly gives me

Being a single parent has not been easy now that I have to provide for my family without any excuse despite that am a casual worker selling fireworks which earns a little of utmost $5 which is not enough to meet my family's needs. Thanks to GiveDirectly through the monthly cash transfer, I have been able to provide and even pay bills for my children. In the past four months, I have been using $10 of the monthly transfers to pay school fees for my daughter Riziki who is in her last year of secondary, hence providing a conducive environment for her to concentrate on her studies due to the commitment with the teachers of monthly payments. She now has a debt of $80 for the whole year which I believe I will soon clear through the transfers. I have also been saving $20 off the transfers monthly to buy goats and sheep with the hopes that when they multiply they will provide financial security and also they can help me meet my emergencies. I thank God that last month I was able to achieve my goal by buying 2 goats worthy$60 and a sheep using $25.The rest of the amount every month I have used it to ensure that my daughter Riziki does not go to school without a meal.

Looking ahead, I aspire to build a separate kitchen structure. Currently, my house serves both as a sleeping space and a cooking area. Cooking with firewood in the house produces a lot of soot, posing health risks and causing dirtiness to my clothes and household items. I could estimate the cost for building a separate kitchen structure is estimated to cost approximately $150, and I hope to accumulate this amount through future cash transfers. Additionally, I aim to continue expanding my goat herd. Having already increased the herd to six goats through previous cash transfers, my objective is to reach twenty goats by the end of the transfer period. Rearing livestock will provide a sustainable source of income, allowing me to sell some of them to meet the future needs of my children and myself.

Over the past three months, I prioritized my children's education by allocating $44 to clear school fees for both my college-going son and my daughter in high school. This decision was crucial in ensuring that they remained in school without the risk of being sent home due to unpaid fees. I am delighted that they are both doing well in their studies and facing fewer disruptions. With careful planning, I saved the remaining funds and combined them with some of the recent cash transfers to purchase a goat worth $50. My goal is to allow the goats to reproduce, and in the future, selling some of them will provide additional support for my family's needs. Through the cash transfers, I have acquired four goats, and I am grateful for this opportunity. The remaining $8 was utilized to purchase food items, such as sugar, as we had already harvested the main food, maize, from the farm.

My current priority is to ensure that my children's education is not disrupted due to a lack of funds. My son is in college right now, and my daughter is in high school. Raising the required fees has been a significant challenge for me. I am unable to work in the menial jobs I used to do due to my poor health. As a result, I rely heavily on the monthly transfers to cover my children's educational expenses. Fortunately, I have been able to use the monthly transfers to pay for their education and have even cleared part of the fees. My ultimate hope is that this financial assistance will keep them from being sent home from school on a regular basis. They had previously experienced this when I was unable to pay their fees on time. I am extremely grateful for the support that has allowed me to give them a chance to shape their future through education.

I used my recent transfers to hire a tractor and plow my four-acre farm. The main objective behind this was to maximize my harvest while avoiding any delays due to rain. Thanks to GiveDirectly's invaluable assistance, I was able to hire the tractor and prepare four acres of land for cultivation well in advance. As a subsistence farmer, timely land preparation ensures a good harvest and thus food security for my family. If I had continued using inferior tools, it would have taken me months to prepare the entire farm. However, with the tractor's assistance, I was able to fully utilize my acreage and ensure a successful harvest. With the remaining transfer, I made two significant investments. Firstly, I purchased a sheep, which now adds to my existing goat shed, increasing my livestock assets. These animals serve as a safety net in case of any financial emergencies, as I can sell them to meet my needs. Secondly, I used part of the money to pay for my daughter's high school fees. This cleared the fee arrears, allowing her to continue her education without any interruptions. I am grateful that GiveDirectly's support not only benefited my farming endeavors but also contributed to my daughter's education and future prospects.

The struggles I go through as a widow trying to make ends meet for her three children are overwhelming. Though I rely on making charcoal for a living, the earnings I raise hardly fit all the basic needs of an ordinary household; food and school fees. Gratefully, from the monthly cash transfers, I have not only found an opportunity to scratch some of these needs but also to establish an investment. Rearing goats is exactly the type of investment that moves me. This is because when I let these animals multiply in number, I can sell them in the future to meet my children’s needs. In the short run, I mean to save $10 every month to finance this purpose. 

By the time I received the money, I had saved at least $20 from previous transfers, for the purpose of securing a goat. I was excited to finally top up the savings by $10 from the recent cash to buy the animal, which increased the herd number to two goats. Also, I paid a $10 tuition amount for my son in secondary school as a precaution so that he would not be sent home to pick up the fees. With my charcoal-burning business, it is challenging to raise a lump sum amount to clear his fee debt. This is why I budget any money I get to also cover part of his tuition; am glad the cash transfers are presenting an ideal opportunity for the same. Other than school fees, food security is a similarly critical issue in my household. Four days before the transfer, my other two children and I had been surviving on one meal per day, which left us hungry most of the time. So I spent the remaining $14 to buy corn flour. We have been enjoying at least two meals ever since; I could never be more relieved. 

I purchased food and water with a sizable sum of money ($20) from my recent transfer. It has been very challenging to find water for domestic use. Our main sources of water, the streams and waterpans, have dried up, adding to the suffering. I use a lot of water for various purposes, so the $0.50 price tag on a twenty-liter bottle of water is outrageous. I am compelled to walk far distances in such water, up to 50 kilometers. As a result, I feel extremely worn out and exhausted and am unable to focus entirely on selling charcoal to make a living. Along with purchasing food and water, I also paid my daughter's school fees at Tsangatsini Secondary School so that she would not be expelled due to the significant school fee arrears that have accumulated recently. I'm happy she was able to take her end-of-term exams and did well on them.

Give Directly is helping many families get out of poverty. The cash transfers help us put food on the table and support our children's education, which is usually challenging for us. I cannot figure out anything wrong with the organization. 

As the breadwinner for the family, I always rely on making charcoal to make a living. Cutting tree stumps and heating them to make charcoal takes nearly a month, which delays my income. Even after such a long wait, the most I can make in a month is KES 700. This amount is inadequate to cover food and school fees. For this reason, my daughter, who is in second grade, is frequently absent from school due to unpaid fees, and the family constantly runs out of food. This is why I used KES 1,500 from the transfer to pay off my daughter's outstanding school fee balances, allowing her to continue her studies uninterrupted. I also used the remaining funds to buy food, which lasted for at least a week. 

I woke up the morning of the transfer hungry because I had not eaten anything the night before. Receiving this money made me feel better. I was relieved that my family would soon have something to eat.

After I used the transfer to pay for my daughter's school fees, she happily resumed her studies and has never been kicked out since. There are no words to express how grateful I am for the assistance provided this far by Give Directly.

As the family's breadwinner, I rely on burning charcoal to provide for the family. Due to the low demand in the market, I make at most KES 1,200 per month which barely satisfies the family's needs like food and school fees. In fact, my daughter had stayed at home for almost two days due to unpaid school fees. So, I channeled KES 1,000 from the transfer towards her education. I used the remaining amount to buy food which lasted the next two days. Since then, we have been living on a cup of tea and sleeping hungry.