I am planning to buy an additional dairy cow to increase my income before this year ends.

In my opinion, GiveDirectly does well to change the living standards of people. For instance, initially, I had a tiny grass-thatched house but with the transfers, I now have a modern and spacious Iron roofed house. Additionally, through the Iron roof, I now have access to clean rainwater.This is because the water in our place is unhealthy for consumption due to the clayish nature of the soil.

I am a mother of four and I have been a ground nuts vendor for the past five years. Each day I make a profit of KES 600. This normally helps in household expenses, school fees, and investments in the merry-go-round groups. When I received my second transfer, I spent KES 20,000 on a quarter an acre of land. This is to increase the crop farming space because I only have an eight and a half piece of land. This comprised of my homestead, a small crop portion, and a dairy portion as well. Secondly, I spent KES 15,000 on three bags of maize corn and settlement of previous corn debts. This will feed my family for the next four months. Before GiveDirectly, I used to spend KES 800 a day on household items on sugar, maize meal, and firewood. This was quite costly but the arrival of the transfers has helped reduce the expenses. Thirdly, I spent KES 2,500 on other food and household items. I also spent KES 3000 on my stomach medication. Additionally, I spent KES 10,000 on 5 sofa set seaters. This has made my new house very beautiful for my family and visitors too. Further, I spent KES 8,000 on the latest clothing fashion which is more decent compared to the second-hand clothes we used to afford. Lastly, I spent KES 2000 buying a bag of groundnuts. This has helped increase my daily income because now I get up to KES 1,800 a day. Before, I could only afford to buy at most six kilos of groundnuts which would be sold out in three days.

It was at night at around 10 pm and my children and I were already asleep. Suddenly, I was jolted from my sleep by my phone which was ringing notifying me of a new SMS. I woke up confused as I wondered to myself what could the message be all about. I decided to check it and hence I reached out for my phone from where I had placed it. I unlocked my screen and I opened the SMS. I could not believe my eyes when I read the SMS which was saying that I had received KES 55000 in my mobile money account. I was so excited on seeing this that I decided to wake up my children just to confirm with them if what I had seen was true. I handed the phone to them and they indeed confirmed it with big smiles on their faces that that was the message that we had patiently been waiting for. We were so happy that day that we even lost our sleep.

The transfer brought a very big difference in my life and that of my family. Our lives have changed for the better and hence we are no longer like before. The children are the most happiest since they were able to get new clothes and they now have enough food to eat. Thank you GiveDirectly for the support.

I spent most of the transfer money on building another house for my family. I spent KES 30000 on doing so where I bought iron sheets and trees for building poles. I also spent part of the money in paying for the labour costs. I wanted to construct another house because the one that we use to live in was very small and the space was no longer enough for us all. I hence wanted another one that is modern and much bigger which was going to fit the five of us, that is, me together with my four children. I was not in a position to construct one before since I didn't have the large sum of money needed to do so. I have a small business of hawking snacks such as biscuits that I depend on. The little money that I make from it is what I use in purchasing foodstuffs such as maize, milk, sugar for my family. Apart from constructing the house, I also spent KES 14000 on buying clothes for myself and my children. I also bought two bags of maize at KES 4500 per bag. With the remaining amount of money that was left, I used it in buying some foodstuffs since the Christmas celebration was around the corner, and some I used it in paying for my medical expenses since I was not feeling well and I had to visit the hospital. I am so much grateful to GiveDirectly because all these have been possible due to them. We now have a bigger house, and with having roofed it with iron sheets, I can collect rain water for our household consumption.