I adopted the norm of prioritizing the school fees of my son who is currently in form four. So when I received the transfers, the goal was to first clear his outstanding tuition arrears worth 3,300 KES. I committed 1,500 KES to secure a goat for rearing to reproduce and maintain a source of funds. Our house requires renovations around the door since it is broken and we use stones to hold and reinforce it throughout the night. Therefore, I spent 2,000 KES to acquire pebbles that will be used for the construction of a concrete pillar around the door. The rest of the money went towards purchasing food, paying for transportation of water from the ponds to my home, and buying kerosene for lighting since I cannot afford solar energy expenses.

Before the coming of GiveDirectly, raising fees for my child in high school was a challenge. Though I was getting some money through selling milk, it was not enough to pay the fees required. I am now at peace because I have been able to set aside Ksh. 2000 every time I receive a transfer in order to pay the fees. Besides, I am assured of paying for him every month unlike before. Apart from the fees, I also spent the remaining transfers on buying enough foodstuffs for my family. I am grateful to GiveDirectly because I was able to purchase enough cereals that can serve us for weeks.

In my opinion, GiveDirectly does well in terms of helping the needy in society. With the money, I can use it to do different things that will help me out. This money is an opportunity for me to transform my life and have a better opportunity to look at life and elevate myself from poverty.

On the day that I received the transfer, my child who is in primary school was sent home from school due to fee balances. I owed the school KSH 3500. Immediately after I received the transfer I went withdrew the money and added KSH 500 on top of the KSH 3000 so that he could go back and continue with his learning. I am grateful that things have changed for the better. Instances of him staying over for more than two weeks after being sent home are no longer there. I am grateful that he will continue with his education without any instances of interruption.

I was sitting down in my compound thinking of what to do next In terms of where to get the money that I will use to buy food for my family. At that moment I received a text message and after looking into it, I knew that I had received cash from GiveDirectly. I became very happy. I term it as a miracle to me because I had not expected to receive such an amount from anybody.

There is a big difference in that I was able to buy food and I now have food and I can now concentrate on satisfying my other needs. I am grateful for the help. My family now has food that will last them for a while and I am currently focusing on getting money to add onto the stock. 

I spent the funds on buying food. I had spent several days before receiving the money skipping meals. I came up with that plan so that I could survive the tough economic times. I depend heavily on farming so that I can earn a living. Now that the drought has knocked us down hard. It is hard to survive. There are hardly np any jobs that we can engage in to be able to tend to my family. The night before receiving the cash I remember that I had slept hungry and when the cash came through I spent the whole KSH 3000 on buying food.