Though for long I desired to enroll in a course, this never materialized because we did not have money as a family. With my second transfer, I enrolled in hotel and hospitality management. I long to have finished my certificate course in the upcoming year. After that, I will search for a job, after which I will build a better house from there. The current one has a single room and a rusted iron roof. Every time it rains heavily, it leaks causing inconvenience to my family. In the last five years, it has been around. My two kids and I always sleep there since I do not have a choice.

We had come to a dead end as a community owing to adverse weather changes we have been experiencing for the past two years. It was hard for me to provide food and other needs for my family. We were only able to live day by day because of the severity of our poverty and the lack of employment. However, the entry of GiveDirectly in our village meant a lot to us. It does well in reducing the poverty level by providing unconditional cash transfers. As a result, there is an improvement in our way of life. Some children have re-enrolled to school as a result of the transfer. Some people who had goals they could not achieve have embarked on that. So far there is nothing GiveDiirectly does not do well.

All four of us—my husband, my two children, and I—happily live together as a family. Before the transfer, I was unemployed, while my husband primarily relied on doing a casual job at the quarry site for income. His low pay caused us to accrue debts that we could not pay off. I made paying off my debt of $76 for food I had taken for the family a priority. In addition, I spent $140 on four goats. Finally, I spent $40 on food and part of the college enrollment fee. We are very grateful, and I am happy that it will allow me to continue my study in hospitality and hotel management.

I work as a farmer and mostly I do depend on crop farming. This activity is seasonal and can be affected by droughts which are common in our region. When I received the financial aid from GiveDirectly, I felt so happy because I knew that the money would help me to do much in life. I needed to diversify through rearing livestock but the finances were a challenge. I saw a dream come true when I got the money.

For some time, I had a plan to buy livestock but every year I couldn't manage to earn enough money through farming as my maize crops wouldn't perform well due to drought. Lucky enough, I got these transfers from GiveDirectly and now I have what I needed. I always feel good looking after the cow every day. In the future, I will be earning through the sale of milk and wouldn't have to wait for the harvesting season so that I can raise some money through the sale of crop production.

First, we spent KES 25000 on buying a heifer for rearing. We opted to buy one so that when it matures and reproduces, we shall have offspring and in turn more livestock in my compound. In the future, we will be selling some so that we can raise money to pay school fees for our children. My spouse had not completed paying the dowry to my parents and he spent KES 15000 on paying the dowry. The remaining amount of KES 14000, we spent on buying the stock of foodstuffs since we had little in stock. We opted to buy in bulk so that I would sustain us for some weeks. We bought items like, rice, maize flour, baking flour, and cooking oil among others.