Our main goal was for me to construct a house then pay school fees, unfortunately, I was bitten by a poisonous insect in the bush, which infected my leg, this led to me being hospitalised for a while, but I am grateful that I had the cash from GiveDirectly which helped in offsetting the hospital bill, though I never anticipated that I would spend my transfer on medication.

I am grateful for the support that brought hope to our lives, it has improved our living standards and that of my community, throughout my interaction with the GiveDirectly staff I have not witnessed any malpractice.

My husband and I are into the charcoal vending business, together we are blessed with thirteen children, upon receiving the second transfer I opted to build a spacious house, this is because the fifteen of us were sharing the same house that was small and stuffy, unfortunately, I was incapable of expanding it due to financial constraints, thus I used KES 20,000 in the construction, In addition to that I am happy that I paid KES 21,000 in clearing the fee arrears, I then used KES 10,000 on medication, lastly I used the remaining amount in buying foodstuffs.

I was on my way home from the neighboring village when I saw a message notification from my mobile phone. Since I was in a hurry and illiterate I decided to rush home. Upon arriving, I asked my elder son to confirm what the notification was all about. After reading it out, he realized that it was an Mpesa notification from Segovia Technology I had finally received my first transfer. I was so happy and remember saying a special prayer for the blessings.

The biggest difference in my daily life is that through the transfers, I was empowered to clear the school fees arrears for my seven children. Two are secondary school and five in primary schools. This has been my main challenge since my spouse and I had no permanent jobs and we only relied on the charcoal burning and selling business which has not been profitable. With a family of eleven members, all I could afford was only to bring food to the table and the remaining expenses like paying school fees on time were not affordable. Therefore this forced my children to be on and off, missing exams to them were like a routine. This however demoralized them and affected their performance terribly. I am so happy and grateful that I managed to send them to school and paid the fees in advance so that they can study peacefully without any distractions. This has been my long-time dream seeing them study like the rest. I am assured of a brighter future courtesy of GiveDirectly.

I spent part of the first transfer on my first on purchasing some building materials which include ten pieces of iron sheets at KES 6600, building poles KES 10000, nails, and the labor cost KS 5000. I had intended to construct a new house for my children since for all that time they have been sheltering at their grandmother's house because mine was relatively small. I also paid school fees of KES 11000 for my seven children who are both in primary and secondary schools. In addition, I bought two mattresses to replace the old sacks that I have been using for all that long. With the remaining amount of money, I have been using it to buy food for the family .