My life is different in that I now have a new house that I never thought I will ever be able to build anytime sooner. We have also been able to have a dairy cow for the family. We had sold all the livestock we had for the family just so that we could be able to raise enough money to pay school fees for our children. We had gone to extent of borrowing a neighbors cow that could only get us hardly enough milk for household consumption. This often felt demeaning and I had always desired to have our own dairy cow. I am now a proud parent that I have been able to buy a dairy cow that is going to provide us with enough milk for consumption and the surplus for sale to meet other household needs. The livestock shall also help us meet other unforeseen financial challenges that could come our way unlike the neighbors which would be a criminal offense to sell at the event of any unforeseen financial emergencies.

In my opinion GiveDirectly did so well in giving unconditional cash to us the beneficiaries. The money was quite a lot in our eyes and we were given freedom to choose anything we wanted to do with the money. On the other hand I did not see anything that I felt GiveDirectly should change in their way o operations.

I used most of my second transfer to pay school fees for my two children who are in college and secondary boarding schools. By paying school fees I was able to forego other personal assets that I would have sold to get money that could allow me pay school fees for my children. GiveDirectly came in handy to help me keep the remaining family assets that I would otherwise have sold to help raise enough money for fee payment. We had already sold most of our assets and we were at the verge of losing most of the assets. As for the basic household needs, I decided to buy them since we had none and we could always end up borrowing from the neighbors whenever we had visitors. This was so demeaning for us as a family. We can now have visitors at home and welcome them comfortably and avoid the shame of having to borrow utensils from the neighbors.

The biggest difference is that I have a new house which I built with GD money.

The moment I receive the money from GD I said a big thank you as I had never gotten such amount in my life.

The money which I got from GD I spent to buy barbed wire for fencing my compound, I spent some to built a house and buy some food. I also pay school fees for my children in school.