I am planning to start up a small business supplying milk to boarding schools. I usually do it although to homesteads and the terms of payment are on delivery. In the near future, I will be expanding and mostly the deliveries will be done by the motorcyclist as they will be in large quantities. The profits from the business will be taking care of my kids' school fees.

In my opinion, what Give Directly does so well is that they give out unconditional transfers, different people have different needs and therefore it would be of no importance if the transfers had any restrictions on the spending patterns. Another thing that is done perfectly is that 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 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 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.

The moment I received my initial transfer, I was at the shopping centre where I had gone for an errand when I heard my phone ringing and vibrating. Upon checking what the message was all about, That was when I realised that I had received money from GiveDirectly. Words cannot explain the immense joy that I felt because I knew that I would be able to accomplish my goals. I headed home in a hurry where I broke the news to my husband on arrival and he was equally happy and grateful for the support that came to uplift our lives.

The biggest difference in my daily life today is that I was able to sell milk in the village, With the business, I am assured that I will be earning an extra income which will go a long way in buying foodstuffs and other basic needs. I am so grateful for the support that empowered me financially and also enabled me to clear the school fees arrears during the tough economy in our country.

My husband and I depend on casual jobs to make a living. Upon receiving our initial transfer, we thought of clearing school fees for our children who are in university and high school, at the moment three of them are still under my care because the rest are all grown. I, therefore, used KES 35,000 on paying school fees for my two secondary school children and then KES 8000 for the one at the university. Finally, I was able to start a milk business with the remaining KES 5000. We were unable to achieve all this before due to the little money that we make from the casual jobs and thus we are grateful for the support that lifted our living status.