I had planned on purchasing a dairy cow. This was always in my mind. There was a certain breed that I had always wished to own. I am so grateful because I own it now and I get enough milk for the family and I can sell the surplus to earn an income. I had planned on paying school fees for my son who is in secondary school. This had given him humble time to study and I hope to see him performing much better than before.

Giving some money to the poor in the community is what GiveDirectly does well. Most people were able to purchase water tanks to store clean water for domestic uses while others build better houses and pay school fees for their children. I do not find anything that GiveDirectly did not do well.

I spent KES 45,000 on purchasing a dairy cow. This is the best breed that I had always wished to own. Currently, I get enough milk for the family and I sell the extra milk to earn some income The money that I get through this I used for household basic needs and save some amount in the merry-go-around group that we have started in our village. I am so grateful because I used to struggle so much with doing casual jobs to get some money for household items. I spent the rest of the money to pay school fees for my son who is in secondary school. He is now studying well without any stress like before. He has some humble time in school and this gonna improve his performance. I have peace of mind and I do my daily activities at home unlike before when I was worried about where they get the money to feed the family and Pau the fees for my children in various schools.

It was 11:24 pm and most of us in the household had not fallen asleep. We were just relaxing in our bed anxiously waiting for the transfer from GiveDirectly. Some people in the community had received their transfers earlier and hence we had hopes that we were also going to receive it too before the day ends. As a result of this, I kept checking my phone, and the children who were also excited and eagerly waiting for the transfer kept asking me every time they could hear my phone ringing. Finally, at around half past 11 pm, I got the SMS and I immediately informed my family of the good news. They were extremely happy on hearing this and we thanked God and GiveDirectly for the help that they had given us. We went back to our beds happy because we knew our lives were now going to change for the better.

The transfer brought a very big difference in our lives as a family. Life has become easy for us after we got things that we have always wanted. I was able to restart my knitting business again which I am hoping is going to pick up well and help me in the future. My husband is now able to do the registration of the students online without worrying about his bundles getting depleted hence affecting his work. Thank you so much GiveDirectly for all these. May God bless you.

We spent the transfer money on the things that we didn't have due to financial constraints and had desired to have them. I first paid a KES 5000 debt that I owed someone. I then took KES 10000 and used it in buying sewing threads for my business of sewing sweaters which I had stopped doing for a while due to lack of money for buying the threads. I also bought window curtains at KES 10000. Other than that, we also spent KES 10000 on installing a wi-fi network. My husband is a teacher and he usually does the registration of students who are to sit for their final examinations online. He usually buys data bundles to do so but this has been costly to him since the data bundles get depleted very fast. He hence saw it wiser if we install the wi-fi network. We also took KES 10000 and used it in paying school fees for our child who is in secondary school and the rest of the remaining amount, we used in buying blankets, clothes, and foodstuffs. Restarting my business of sewing sweaters is what I wanted to achieve the most upon receiving the transfer. This is because this is what was going to help me in the future in making other developments. When I had closed down the business due to lack of money, I was forced to do casual work of crashing stones at a quarry to raise money for buying household goods and contributing to the self-help groups that I am in. I am hence so much grateful to GiveDirectly because I was able to achieve my goal.