"My dream has always been to be able to buy poultry and livestock in large quantities and run a business off of their produce. I am confident that I will be able to make a viable business out of everything from meat to eggs and milk from various livestock, allowing me to educate and provide for my children, giving them a better life than we have had as their parents."

"I am a single parent, a widower to be precise, since 2015 when my wife died, and handling 5 kids on a farmer's wage has been quite comical. Needless to say, some of the funds from GiveDirectly were immediately directed towards renting a pair of plows and oxen to plow my land. I also sourced and purchased seedlings for the maize and greens I wanted to plant. With all the toiling I do on the farm all day or on the casual jobs I sometimes get, it has always been a dream of mine to have a good mattress to come home on and relax on at night. Sadly, I haven't been able to get one until GiveDirectly came into play. These funds finally gave me the opportunity to invest in my comfort, and I'm humbled that they did. Sorting the kids' school fees was next on my agenda. My two eldest have cleared high school, with the third, in form three, needing $90 per term, the eighth-grader needing $70, and the fifth-grader needing $40 a term. Quick mathematics will show any logical person how much of a burden the funds relieved me of in terms of school fees. Overall, GiveDirectly gave me the fuel I needed to keep going and keep living. I was living on empty before that, and they saved me."

"To make ends meet, I want to expand my current business and include carpentry."

"Being the sole parent can be extremely stressful. I've had to fend for myself without a partner. GiveDirectly was chosen as that partner. They have walked alongside me like no one else has before. I hope they continue to bless others as they have blessed myself and our community."

"The challenge I face is Lack of money in that I am unable to feed my family. And the change in weather from a rainy season to a hot season, crops are not able to grow thus lack of food."

"The challenge i am facing right now is lack of start up capital for a business. I have always desired to have a business from which I know I will be able to get money to sustain my family with food, school and other needs."

"The main challenge is not having enough capital to sustain a new business because we lack enough money for operation. My husband Charles started being an Airtel telecommunications agent 8 months ago but he is not having enough capacity to keep it running because when for example a person want to withdraw like $50 and he doesn't have that amount and it takes him days to raise that amount it makes him lose some clients and he can't be able to retain existing ones because they are not getting the service they need. And another challenge is that we currently don't own any livestock to give us fertilisers and this affects our productivity because we can't be able to harvest enough as we want."

"The greatest challenge I have is not having livestock to give me fertiliser to use in my land, I currently own a small land in order to survive i have to rent from others to and to be able to get money to rent that land I have to work for others too. Being able to get school fees to pay for my children is very hard for me because it requires me to work more and be able to raise enough for the 3 of them. Currently one of my children doesn't have school uniform because i am not capable of paying for it and this is a challenge for me and my children."

"Not having enough land of our own is our greatest challenge because the little money get from the small business we have we use it renting land to cultivate. Another challenge we are currently facing now is that the weather is bad for our crops , we have have been in a sunny season for about 3 months and this is affecting our harvest in this period. Another challenge we are currently facing is that we don't have easy access to enough fertiliser either Organic or inorganic, we currently don't have any livestock we have to buy fertiliser from others and because of our little economy we can't get enough money to buy both Organic and inorganic , we have to choose or balance them which is not enough for our land."

"The main challenge we are currently facing is not having enough land , we have to rent from others in order to be able to produce what to eat , to get fertiliser to use we have to herd livestock from others, the only livestock we have is 3 chickens. My husband Emmanuel wishes to start a small business but because we don't have any capital to start running that business we continue to live in poverty. Our house is very small for our family size and my children don't have primarily equipment that they need like matress and clothes."