"My daily life is much better after receiving the transfer. This is because I have been able to build a more spacious house for my family. Before receiving the transfer, I used to live in a small one room house and my children had to sleep at my neighbors kitchen who is also my relative. Doing everything like cooking, sleeping and sitting in the same room where other activities are taking place is so demoralizing especially when having visitors. Building a bigger house has enhanced my self esteem and I am also glad that my children will now be sleeping at home."

"Receiving this money from GiveDirectly means a descent and a spacious house for my family of seven. I am planning to use 250 dollars from the transfer to construct a two bedroom house for my family. The house will cost me this little cash because my husband will help in sourcing for the building materials from the forest. Completing this house will make me happy and ready to receive any visitor with courage. I will further use 400 dollars to buy one pair of ox-plough for farming. This will further assure my family of food security. Doing all this will make me happy because I will have fulfilled all my desires."

"In my opinion GiveDirectly does well by giving money to the poor in the community to build better houses and to buy dairy cows. I do not find anything that GiveDirectly did not do well."

"Unemployment is the biggest hardship that I have ever faced in my life. Over the two years that I returned home, life has been very difficult for me and my children since my husband has completely abandoned his responsibility. This forced me to look for casual jobs in the village at least to make ends meet, but this has never come through. I have been depending on charcoal business that earns me less than $15 a day. This makes it difficult to meet most basic needs of my family."

"Since my late husband died, I have been really struggling to fend for my children. I used to depend on him for everything. I am not formally employed, and even the little business I engage on has also gone down. I am a charcoal seller, and with the drought that has ravaged our region, even trees have become scarce. Putting food on the table and meeting other basic needs is becoming a pipe dream. I am also obliged to pay school fees for my last born son, which has put me in continuous and vicious cycle of debts. So, the biggest problem that I have ever faced is the dependency ratio in me and the unemployment problem."

"I have been yearning to sleep in a decent house for so many years but because of the financial constraints, I couldn't afford to buy the necessary materials. Therefore after receiving the money, I had to fulfill the dream. I bought materials like iron sheets for $90, building poles at $56, nails and timber at $34 respectively. In addition to that, I gave the mason $90 as his labor charge. I then cleared hospital bills for my two sons who had undergone circumcision with a cost of $36. On top of that, I paid school fees for my children a total of $48 who are in primary schools. With the remaining amount of money, I bought enough food for the family and it's now a relief because we are now taking a two meals which was not achievable during those days."

"I can vividly remember just like the other day at around 8 AM when i was at the shop buying foodstuff for the day when i heard a message tone. Without wasting time, I opted to check the content of the message. Upon checking I realized that it was an Mpesa message from GiveDirectcly, they had debited my first transfers as promissed. Due to the joy that I had, I even deiced to return home and started the planning."

"The biggest hardship I have faced in my life is lack of a reliable source of income to sustain my family. After the collapse of my cattle selling business, life became miserable. I nolonger have any reliable source of income to meet my family's basic necessities such as food, better shelter and education."

"We are subsistence farmers, why do I say so? Because the amount of produce that we get cannot even sustain my family and pay my children school fees. With this transfer, I will be able to pay Ksh 40,000 for my daughter who is joining college and ksh 15,000 for one in secondary school. We intend to buy a cow to add to our herd tlin order to boost milk production."

"Receiving this money will mean a lot to me. I live in a grass thatched house that leaks when it rains. It is a one roomed house that I partitioned to be my kitchen and at the same time my bedroom. Whenever I cook, smoke fills the house making me uncomfortable and cough so much. With the transfers, I will build a better house so that I may not be rained on, buy maize and other food since I am old to cultivate and also buy a calf."