"I was in my house sweeping that morning when I heard a message notification on my phone. I could not understand the Mpesa sms that I saw, I had to call one of my children who had not gone to school. He confirmed it was the transfer which I been waiting from GiveDirectly. I was overwhelmed with joy since my desire of supporting the education of the children was about to be achieved. We celebrated and thanked GiveDirectly for fulfilling their promises."

"Receiving this money is a great opportunity for me to finally live in a better house. The house i am living now is a grass thatched one and i always face challenges during rainy season as it leaks. I will use the money to buy iron sheets to roof the house."

"Since I got divorced from my husband many years ago, life has not been easy for me and my children. I remained with a huge responsibility of taking care of the kids. I now do a business of selling home baked banana cakes which we sell at the nearest market. This money is what supplements our lives whenever we are in need of money. I believe this money will help us a lot in finishing the house especially plastering and cementing the floor. We shall also buy good beddings,mattres and also add some money to the business in order to make more profits after increasing number of cakes made. I am very sure my children and grandchildren will be taken care of well."

"I am very passionate about business and given an opportunity I won't hesitate to venture into it again. I had started it but it went down because of lack of capital. My interest has been buying and selling clothes. The challenge that I face is inadequate capital. Granted this money I will spend Kes 100000 to buy stock for business and the rest to pay for rent.Business is where my mind rests and is all the time."

"My aim is to finish up constructing the kitchen house. I am not yet done with the ground and I still require some money to be able to complete it. Other financial needs had to override its completion. The floor is dusty and not conducive to serve as a kitchen. Cleaning is also a big challenge. I will use approximately Kes 10000. The rest of the money will be used to pay for the school fees for my children who are in various schools."

"Since I cleared my college, I decided to stay alone in the house and start cooking for myself, life has been hard since I have everything. My house is made of grass and it's a big shame for someone who is employed to stay in such condition,I have a desire to build a descent house that will even host my visitors when they come home.Givedirectly have really come at the time we needed help most."

"This money will mean development in my family , I will be able to buy my grand children clothes , I will renovate my house and buy enough food"

"Hunger is the biggest hardship we have faced in life. The only food crops that do well in this area are sweet potatoes. During the off-season for sweet potatoes, we depend on purchased foods from Chebunyo market. I retired as a painter at Unilever Company in the year 2012. I spent all my savings on educating my children and bought this posho mill which has stopped working for a long time due to low maize yields in this region. We have to struggle so much doing manual jobs such as brick making, collection of sand, and paint to put the meals on the table. we sometimes take two meals a day but mostly one meal, especially in the evening due to inadequate finances to but food."

"The biggest difference in my daily life is that the cash transfers empowered me to build a permanent house. The previous one was in a critical l condition and very small in such a way that some of my family members (9) had to seek shelter elsewhere. My spouse has been depending on some odd jobs with very low income which in a good day, he could earn KES 500 which was too little for the basic household needs like, food, clothing, shelter, school fees, and medical expenses. Therefore this man's building a permanent house using my own money would take years. It is now a relief because I finally accomplished my dream. We are sleeping comfortably in a better shelter with all my children without having to worry about all sorts of stress that we underwent during those days. In addition to that this has even made my children improve on heor performance because they have ample space to study on their own at night which is very encouraging and motivating."

"The biggest hardship I have faced is lack of enough money to meet my family basic needs such as food,clothing and school fees for my children.A year ago, I closed down my small tailoring shop because I was expectant with my daughter who is now 10 months old.I opted to close it down and focus on raising up my children first.Since then, my husband who is a mason has been the sole breadwinner in our family and this has been difficult.He earns an average of KES 300 per day which is hardly enough to sustain all our needs."