My family of seven members includes four school-age children. Because I do not have a consistent source of income, they are occasionally sent home for school fees, even though they attend a public school where parents do not pay as much as in private schools. Most of the time, I sell some of my farm produce to help them pay their fees. However, this season has been difficult because there has been no harvest. Fortunately, the recent transfers arrived just in time for me to pay off KES 2,000 in fee arrears. I am overjoyed that we will be able to study with minimal disruption throughout the term.

During the rainy season, I worked on other people’s farms to pay. Since the drought began, I have struggled to provide for my three children because of a lack of jobs. I currently sell firewood and earn KES 200 per day, which is only enough to buy food, and I am left with nothing to save. They often sent my children home due to school fee arrears which I cannot pay. I sometimes resort to seeking leniency from the school administration to let them continue with their studies with a promise to clear the debt once I get the money. Because of my low and unstable source of income, I often cannot keep the promise, and they send my children back home and miss important lessons. Therefore, when I received my transfer, I spent KES 1500 on clearing school fee debt for them to be allowed back to school after staying home for slightly over one week. Besides clearing the school fee debt, I spent the other half on buying food (12 packets of 2kg maize flour) to add to the dwindling stock of food. With little money to buy food, we reduced the number of meals from3 to 1 per day.

The house I live in is quite small and yet I also live with my wife and seven children. I intend to build a better and bigger house so that my family and I would finally be comfortable unlike now where we are all cramped up in the house. When I received the money I went ahead and bought timber worth KES 2,000 which would be used in building the house. The remaining KES 1,000 I used it to cater for a meal where I bought six packets of maize flour for KES 690 and then used the balance which was KES 310 and bought laundry detergent and kerosene for the lamps,

I spent my third transfer to buy timber. This is because I had intentions of constructing a two-roomed house. The one I have is one room and apart from being small to accommodate us, it is on the verge of collapsing. The second transfer I spent on KES 2500 on paying school fees for my child who is in primary school. The child had been sent back home for a fee thrice in the last term and lost so much in the process of being sent back and forth. The remaining 1700 KES I spent on foodstuff for my family since we did not have enough at that time.

This program offered really great assistance especially because I managed t pay school fees for my children and they were actually sent home the same day I received the money coincidentally so I was able to settle a portion of the debt and they were allowed back in class.

I have wanted to build a better home for the longest and after I received the money I took it as an opportunity to begin the project so I bought fifty pieces of timber which cost me KES 2,000. I want to eventually manage to build the house because my house is quite small and old and it would give me so much peace to improve my living conditions. Mean while the rest of the money which was KES 1,000 and went ahead and paid for three of my children debts back at school so that they would not get sent home after me not settling the tuition fee.

I was cleaning the compound at around 8.am in the morning. I received a text message and upon confirming i found out i had received cash from give directly. Well i felt very happy since i was i need at that time and i thanked God for he had answered my prayers. I did not tell anyone about the good news and i opted to remain silent.

Well to be honest prior to receiving the money i was clueless on where i would get money to pay school fees for my children. Now that i received the money i am grateful that my kids will be able to go to school and at the same time eat well.

I used the money in paying school fees for my children and the rest i bought food for my family