"My husband passed on last year and it's been hard since he died. We used to do business but with his sickness we lost capital and the business died before he died. Now I'm left alone to fend for our 5 children. I hardly make enough to feed the whole family and that is a lot of pressure on me. So I lack food and other basic needs like clothes and soap. So money is my biggest challenge."

"The biggest challenge meet is lack of food. This is because there's no work out there for me to do and make money to buy food. My husband left me last month and now I have to fend for my son. It's hard because my son is 9months and I can't just leave him, I take him every where and that slows me down."

"My small tiny, one-room iron sheet shelter is about to fall apart. The house's support poles are deteriorating with each passing day. I'm worried that if nothing is done soon, the house will fall apart. I intend to use the money to buy cement, sand, and building stones throughout this year to build the house and stop it from completely collapsing. This will strengthen the house by constructing sturdy pillars around each of its four corners. When the repairs to my house are finished, I will be happy to see it in good shape."

"I do not have a source of income to depend on and at my age, I cannot engage in casual jobs since I am old and weak. My son whom I depend on does casual jobs which do not pay much, and most of the time I am left to fend for myself. My wife is also suffering from mental illness and I need to take care of her, and I can only fulfil this through the transfers. I am planning to spend the transfers mainly on buying food and nursing my sick wife, and in case of surplus, I will purchase some goats to keep in my homestead."

"Currently the challenges we are facing are lack of food and proper housing. We are 5 in this family and it's a struggle having to rely on casual labour to feed ourselves. Of course, we do small scale subsistence farming but due to erratic rains in our area we end up harvesting next to nothing. This brings about hunger crisis in our family. On top of that, we have burnt bricks just behind this house, however we are unable to start a new house building project, that's comfy and better accomodating than this one, due to financial constraints."

"At present we are relying on finding casual labour such as farming in people's farms and get paid to buy food. When those don't come by then it gets hard for us to feed our family. On a good day we make about $5 which is far from sufficient to carter for our HH needs especially in terms of food for the 4 of us. Additionally, this house here gives us restlessness especially when it rains for it leaks. These are our only challenges that make our lives harder currently."

"The only challenge I am facing in my household is hunger. Last year I only managed to harvest a single bag of maize from my 3 acres farm. Apart from not applying fertilizer, erratic rains contributed to this low yield. This has brought about a hunger crisis for me and with my weakened strength it's hard for me to conduct pieceworks where I'd be paid and buy food on a daily basis."

"Currently the only challenge I have is lack of food. As of today I only have a single bucket of maize floor for food in my house which I hope will sustain me until next week then I have no idea where next to go and look for food. Of course my spouse, Mkondeni from Lunzu where he's doing pieceworks, sends help but it's intermittent and not sufficient to support me and my HH here."

"Currently the only challenges we are facing are poor housing conditions and hunger. We wish we lived in an iron sheets roofed house but we fail to do that due to lack of financial muscle. Additionally, at present we have zero food stock levels and this brings in a hunger crisis where we only manage to eat once a day, thus, after we find pieceworks and get paid to buy food. These are the hurdles that we are facing in this household."