I am planning to start up a small business selling second-hand clothes for women. I had done this kind of business before the Covid19 Pandemic hit our country, although I had to close it down since most of my potential customers moved to rural areas due to job loss. I have plans of starting all over again as it has high demand due to the purchasing patterns of women in my community. Besides, most of the people in my community prefer purchasing second-hand clothes as it is affordable compared to new ones.

According to my opinion, what Give Directly does so well is that they give out unconditional transfers, different people have different needs, and we have the freedom how to spend the transfers so long as it is something that does not harm us together with community members. The transfers are given in lump sum amounts and this helps in planning purposes in terms of the developments that we would wish to engage in at a personal level. Unlike other projects where it is given in small amounts. To avoid household conflict, what needs to be done differently is enrolling all the individuals in the household. During enrollment, those individuals who did not have responsibilities by then were left out of the program yet these are the same people who steal from their old and vulnerable parents. Another thing that needs to be done differently is enrolling all the communities in a specific village for uniformity purposes and this will prevent too many complaints coming from the communities that are left out during the registration to the programs

Before the transfers, I never had cows before as I had no stable source of income. I used the transfers to buy female cows for kshs 35,000. This is for milk production for my family's consumption and sale. I do casual work to earn a living and most of the time the pay is too little to cater for my basic needs, I do top it up with the money from selling milk and this has enabled me to take care of other basic needs like food, clothing and kids school fees. I used the remaining part of the transfers of kshs 20,000 to buy a piece of three-seater furniture. I used to fear hosting friends and relatives as I never had enough seats for them, but my self-esteem has improved since I started receiving transfers from GiveDirectly.

It thrilled me when I first saw a message from GiveDirectly that I instantly show my husband. It was around 7:00 am while taking my breakfast with my spouse and children and the news sparked a lot of excitement. This was because we had a lot that we needed to accomplish and could not hold our joy back after this confirmation. I was not so fast though in collecting the money since I was sure of the traffic and the congestion in the nearby shopping center. It took me three days before visiting the shop where I collected all the amounts.

The biggest difference in my daily life is a heifer bought after receiving the first transfer from GiveDirectly. I had a lot to do, but budgeting for livestock wouldn't have interfered with our plans. We had this in mind with my spouse as it will be useful for my children in the future, not only in providing us with milk for our household use but also surplus for sale.

The purchase of the construction materials topped the list of the goals right after receiving the first transfer. For over five months now, my household had been struggling with the construction that came to a standstill when we exhausted all the savings that we thought would accomplish the construction. The assurance that I will soon complete the work triggered our happiness after receiving the first transfer. With the first KES 22900, I got two metallic windows, a door, 12 pieces of soft boards that I am using as ceiling boards, and also a new piece of furniture. I am happy the construction will soon be complete. I also got two sacks of maize at KES 9000 that my family of four is using at the moment. In addition, I purchased a jersey heifer at KES 22000 that revived our hope of getting a plentiful supply of milk in the future. All along I had depended on my parents' livestock, that I am always supposed to feed them all day and get at least a liter of milk later in the evening. I finally used the small remaining amount on clothes and tuition fees for my children.