The persistent drought in our area has rendered most of us jobless. I depend mostly on the farm to earn a living. Currently, that is not possible, and I have had to struggle to prove for the family. It is for this reason that I spent half of the transfer in buying food for the family. With the farms being unproductive, I have to buy food from the shop at very high prices. Besides buying food for the family, I spent the other half in improving my house. I bought two bags of cement at KSH 1500 and made concrete blocks. I want to use the blocks in building the walls of my house. My house is made of mud and poles that do not last long because of rotting. Building the walls using the cement blocks will ensure that the house is strong, safe and durable, avoiding frequent repair costs.

Subsistence farming has been my income generating activity since I finished my education. Through farming, I have been able to educate all my children and I am happy that they are now out working and taking care of themselves. When the drought began two years ago, the farm no longer became productive for me. I opted to work as a casual laborer, doing some manual jobs. I currently burn wood to make charcoal and later sell it. A sack of charcoal goes for KSH 200. Selling the sack can take up to a month. This makes it challenging for me to earn daily. It is for this reason that I decide to buy food worth KSH 1500 from the transfer. I bought a bag of maize flour (12 packets of 2kg maize flour) at KSH 1300. In addition, I bought 1kg of sugar at KSH 120, tea leaves at KSH 20, body lotion at 60. Having bought these things in bulk, I save enough money from my next job and buy food and other items for my family. I spent the other half of the money in buying cement to renovate my house. The pay I am currently earning from the jobs is not enough to save and the renovation on the house. My house is almost coming down because of weak and rotting poles. My plan is to reinforce the house by building strong cement and stone pillars on the corners of the house. When the house falls down, I will be homeless, and that’s a situation I want to avoid.

I have do not have a stable income and mostly depend on manual jobs to feed my family. This leaves me with very little to save to invest in money-generating projects. My house is in a very bad state and needs to be repaired as soon as possible. My wife decided that we should start by repairing our house once we received the transfer. When I received my first, second, and third transfer I spent half of the transfer in buying food and saved the other half in a Chama so that we could accomplish our goal of repairing our house. The last few months towards the end of the year we received heavy rains in our area. The rain had side effects on our house. Part of the walls was destroyed and some of the mud and poles holding the house were destroyed and the house is almost falling. This is seriously jeopardizing our safety as a family. It is for this reason that we are focused to repair it as quickly as possible.

Give directly giving unconditional money to build myself is what it does well. I have yet to see such an organization. Each of us has different priorities when it comes to our families but we thank God, Give directly understands that.

I used my first transfer in two things, first was taking half that is KES.1500 to use in building my home which is almost done. By doing this first is giving my family a sense of security having their own home. The second usage was by taking KES.1500 and buying food for my family. This would ensure that my family at least had one healthy meal a day. It has been a very dry season so finding food was difficult and we had to give food in small portions to survive. Thank you Give directly for this opportunity to grow.

I had woken up very early worrying about food for my family so I went to the farm even though at this time there is nothing to harvest and nothing to plant. The season is too hot for planting anything and even the is no grass. I got a message confirming that I had received the money, I was so happy and grateful.

The biggest difference has ever faced in my daily life has been consistently putting food on the table. This has now been made easier as I get to buy food in stock and use it in moderation rather than living from hand to mouth. Also having a business helped meet basic needs.

With this money, I purely focused on our basic needs that is buy spending KES 1500on food and another KES 1500 to start a business selling vegetables. The idea of selling vegetables was appealing to me as in the village there is no food in the field. This has led to me having a source of income that my family of 12 can easily depend on as I am the sole provider of my family. I have been a farmer for a long time and I have been moving from livestock to crops and alternating until this season where nothing can be done. I am very grateful to Give directly for this opportunity.