My long-term goal is to make sure my two children complete their studies. The older two children did not complete their education due to a lack of school fees after my husband died.

Without knowing, GiveDirectly has helped a lot of widows in society.They visit us at our home and get to have a conversation with us.

I am a widow. My husband died seven years ago and left me with four children. After a while, I was chased out of my husband's compound and went back to my parent house. I have been staying at my parent's compound for over five years and the shame has never left me. I produce and sell charcoal at the market where I get $4 as the profit whenever I make five sacks. This money helps me buy food for my family. I save $0.2 a day in a Sacco and whenever I need a loan I can get it. My two children that are grown up send me money monthly. Receiving this money has enabled me to buy a piece of land that cost $250, Paid school fees arrear that cost $250, and bought two goats at $60 that help with milk for the family.

I sometimes sell poultry feed to farmers. So, on this day, as I was on my way to sell some, I got a message confirming that I had received funds from give directly. I felt relieved and I rejoiced over it. This is because I knew the debts I had were going to be settled. Most importantly, I was going to finish the payment of the land I lived on and finally be a landowner.

After my husband and I divorced, I moved back to my father's compound. He was very supportive and from there, I was able to ensure that my children's needs were met. Even so, this has been quite challenging as I am a livestock farmer and I have to wait for the goats to grow so I can sell them. The wait is what has made me have financial constraints and thereby incur debts along the way. Now that I started receiving funds from give directly, there has been a great difference in my life as I have been able to settle my debts. That is, settling the payment of the land I live in and my children's school fees arrears. I was also able to improve my business by adding five more goats to the 5 I had.

The land I currently live on has not been fully paid for. For this reason, I was not comfortable as I was afraid the owner would repossess it. So, when I got the funds from give directly, the first thing I did was to pay up the balance. Which was KES 25000. Furthermore, for the need I had to improve my livestock farming business, I added 5 more goats to what I had. This raised my animal count to 10 goats and 5 cows. I again used the funds to clear my children's school fees arrears of KES 10000. This is so I could avoid them being sent home and thereby missing out on their classes again. Whatever remained, I used it to restock the house with some nourishments.