I have a new goal of advancing my agricultural activities. I have been practicing agriculture on a small portion of my half an acre farm and it is my plan to put more of it under agriculture. When I received my second transfer, I used part of the money to buy vegetable seeds and the seedlings are almost mature. I have been planting just two thirds of my farm and this time round, I am going to plant the whole farm. This is in an effort to make more money and be in a position to comfortably pay school fees for my children who are in secondary school. My husband and I have been relying mostly on casual work to raise income and this is barely enough to make ends meet for us.

In my opinion GiveDirectly did very well by giving us cash unconditionally. The fact that there were no conditions on how the money was going to be spent really gave us an opportunity to spend the money wisely. The money enabled us unlock our potentials in different ways. People were able to spend the money in the ways they thought the money would benefit them the more. On the other hand, I did not find anything that I thought GiveDirectly could have improved or done better. Everything was done perfectly well.

I used KES 15000 to pay school fees for my children who are in their secondary school level. Another KES 20000 was used to clear debts owed to us by our neighbours. The remaining amount was used to buy food and other basic household needs for my family. It has been tough raising enough money to pay school fees for our children since we rely almost entirely on casual work to raise income that helps us support our family and receiving this transfer came as a relief to us. With the fifteen thousand that we paid, we were able to clear school fees for two terms ahead and this has seen our two children stay in school undisturbed. It has been common to see them being sent home for school fees and that is why they were so happy and grateful for this too. The KES 20000 that we paid off was debts accrued due to payment of school fees as well. When one of my child was recently joining secondary school, we had had to borrow money and settle her in school. This was the only opportune time to clear the debts and be at peace with our debtors.

It was around 5 pm and I was outside looking after my cows as they herd when suddenly I heard a message alert on my phone. I decided to have a look at it, though it is not always my habit to check the messages that are usually sent on my phone. I was surprised when I opened the SMS and I read that I had received the promised transfer of KES 55000 from GiveDirectly. I was so happy that I felt like shouting out with joy. I couldn't believe it. Soon enough after I got the transfer, I started hearing other people in my neighborhood shouting and celebrating with joy and I guessed that they might have received the wonderful news too. I called my husband who was still away at work and I informed him what had happened. He was so happy to hear this and we celebrated together giving thanks to God.

The transfer has brought a big difference in our lives. This is because our stress levels have reduced and we have had some peace of mind having managed to pay school fees for our children. The one who went to undertake a driving lesson course has already completed it. He is doing his final exams. Thank you so much GiveDirectly for your big help.

We spent most of our recent transfer on paying school fees for our three children. We paid KES 15000 for one of them who wanted to undertake a driving lesson course. We then spent KES 14000 on paying school fees for two who are in secondary school and we managed to clear the whole academic term's school fees. For this, we are happy and grateful to GiveDirectly because there was nowhere we were going to get such an amount of money to pay their school fees. I am casually employed as a cook at the nearby primary school and my husband is also casually employed as a herdsman in a certain household. The money that we make is not much, most of it usually goes to the purchase of food and paying school fees little by little. As a result, we had thought of selling a calf as the only resort to raising the needed money for school fees. Other than that, we also spent KES 5000 on buying a goat. Our son who is in primary school had constructed a goats' shed and hence we decided to reward his efforts by buying him one. With the remaining transfer amount, we spent on buying some clothes, maize for our consumption, and essential household items such as sugar, soap, etc.