I do subsistence farming for a living, in the next coming year and beyond I will be using part of my savings to buy a piece of land for farming. Currently I have a small piece of land which can hardly yield good harvest. I am planning to hire a tractor to assist in farming my piece of land of 2 acres, which is about kshs 8000. Normally I do it by the help of casual workers which is so expensive and time consuming. I will therefore be selling the excess farm produce so as to save for my kids school fees. In addition to that, I will be starting a small business of second hand clothes. In my community, most of the people can hardly afford to buy new clothes and this will attract high demand. My wife has been a house wife for the longest time since we got married, engaging her in this business will be a dream come true to our family.

In my opinion, what GiveDirectly does well in this program is that we receive the transfers in lumpsum amounts. This helps for planning purposes in the future. Another thing that GiveDirectly does well is that the unlearned recipients are taught how to use mpesa. This has reduced the number of theft cases in the community as most of us managed to change our pins to a more secure code. To avoid household conflict, what needs to be done differently is enrolling all the individuals in the household. During enrollment, those individuals who did not have responsibilities by then were left out of the program yet these are the same people who steal from their old and vulnerable parents. Another thing that needs to be done differently is enrolling all the communities in a specific village for uniformity purposes and this will prevent too many complaints coming from the communities that are left out during the registration.

-I am a parent of five children. Two are in Secondary School, a boy and a girl, while the other is in college studying Information Technology in his first year. I used a total of kshs 20,000 to clear their school fees arrears that have accumulated for the past year. Before the transfers, I was living in a small grass-thatched house and it could not fit all my family members. The boys used to sleep in my neighbour's house and this was so inconvenient as they could go so early due to insecurity in my community as most homes do not have access to electricity. I used the remaining part of the transfers of kshs 30,000 to build a spacious decent house for my family. I am so grateful to GiveDirectly transfers.

I can vividly recall that it was at 7:22 am when I saw a Mpesa notification showing that I had received funds from GiveDirectly. Words cannot explain how happy I was because It was a beautiful day that I would not wish to forget in a hurry. I knew with the transfer, I would be able to empower and uplift my living standard. I am so grateful for the unconditional transfer for the great honour.

Receiving money from GiveDirectly has been the most crucial moment in my life. This is because I am hopeful that with the dairy cow that I purchased I would be able to get enough milk for my family. I am hopeful that I will be able to convince my wife and children who had left home to come back, they left because I was unable to provide for them. I am grateful for the support that uplifted my life to a higher living standard.

The story of my life is a sad one, My wife and children left because I was unable to meet their basic needs. This was heartbreaking but I had no choice but to move on with life. When I was promised the unconditional transfer, I knew that God had remembered us, I knew that this was the only opportunity that I can use to bring my family back. Therefore I opted to purchase two dairy cows worth KS 50,000. This is because I knew that with this my children would have a surplus of milk. I work as a casual labourer within the village thus I was unable to raise the money before due to unreliable sources of income. I am so grateful for the financial support that gave me hope for a better tomorrow.