Supporting the education of my twelve children and providing for their daily needs like food is my priority. Since nine are still in primary school, and they have a long way before completing at least the high school level, I would be happy if I obtained a reliable source of income to fund their education. Since I do not have a reliable source of income, I aim to use the little amount I get from charcoal burning for food and save the money I get from GiveDirectly.

As a father of twelve school-going children, life has not been a walk in the park. Three of them are in secondary school while nine are in primary school. Since I rely on charcoal burning, things have been tough on my side. Upon receiving the recent transfer, I paid $15 examination fees for the three secondary school children so that they could be allowed to do their exams. Since the drought has prolonged in our area, I opted to use the remaining $19 to buy some food so that my family could something to eat. This amount gave me a one-week rest from the tiring charcoal-burning business.

Upon the arrival of the transfers, my priority was to ensure that my family and I will catered for when it came to matters concerning nourishment especially with the ongoing drought that led to us sleeping hungry on most occasions. That is why I went ahead and used KES 1,600 from the transfers and bought a whole sack of maize because it would be less costly and would last longer compared to buying maize flour. I then proceeded to use KES 400 to purchase a kilogram of maize and beans. I was left with a balance of KES 1,000 which I ended up spending on paying tuition for my ten kids because they were almost over on the verge of being kicked out of school.

As soon as I received the cash transfer, I opted to go ahead and look into nutrition and this is because drought had ensured that we had poor harvest which we happened to rely on for our day to day meals and not forgettingto mention that the cost of living had gone extremely high. So when I got the money I went ahead and bought five packets of maize flour using KES 1,000. I also bought a goat, which the owner happened to be selling at a throw away price of KES 1,000 since he seemed to urgently need the money. Lastly I used the balance of KES 1,000 and paid tuition fee for my two children since they had been home for a week now without attending school.

Before coming to contact with GiveDirectly times were very hard in my home. The kids would get kicked out of school very often and be home for a very long time but now I manage to pay their fees and keep them in school which is a very huge relief for me. Apart from that, providing a meal also was hard especially because of the size of the family, but I am grateful for the helping hand I get through the funds.

When I got notified that the money had arrived I decide to pay school fees for two of my children because they were getting kicked out of school literally almost everyday just because I had yet to clear the tuition fee. Therefore paying their fees was almost a no-brainer. I gave the KES 1,000 to be split among them equally so that they could manage to attend class peacefully. As for what was left I used it solely on nutrition. Initially when I received the money I went ahead and bought four packets of maize flour which cost KES 50, but soon after it was all done because I have quite a large family and I had to use the KES 1,500 that was left to buy more maize flour which included and entire bag that contained a dozen packets. For the vegetables I got them from my own farm so that was barely a hustle.

Most times I deal in the business of selling firewood in bulk and that day like any other I had to fetch some since this was the means I used to feed my family. For instance on most occasions I would sell the firewood in schools and the money I received I would use it to pay for school fees mostly. The distance though was quite far around 10 kilometres and I would go on foot but it was worth it for the sole benefit of my family. I therefore was very happy when I received the money because on my way back home that day I did not even walk like I normally did but rather paid for transport because I had the money.

Through this funds I managed to pay school fees for my children which is very important to me because I strive for my kids to get education and knowledge in order to improve their lives and for the future and I also managed to provide a meal for the entire family considering that we are huge family and this made me grateful.

I happen to have twelve kids who are in school so when I received the money I decided to cater for some of the tuition bills that I had so that to avoid the being sent back home from school. I picked five of them and paid KES 50 for which which totalled to KES 250 because I had also paid a small portion for the others a week before. I was nowhere near to finishing the school fee debt but I promised to keep paying bit by bit so that my children would be allowed to attend school. As for what was left I took KES 875 and bought seven packets of maize flour since we did not have any food left in the house and the children especially, needed something to eat when they came back from school.