"I faced the biggest hardship in my life when I had to pay a lot of money in school fees while I had no job."

"The biggest hardship I have faced in my life has been this time that I have had to live without a job. My husband also suffered a massive paycut due to the pandemic. The effects of the pandemic have been profound on me and combined with climate change in our area opportunities to earn a living and put food on the table have been diminishing."

"When I got married in the year 2013, the shelter was a great challenge for me and my wife. I was in Kaplong polytechnic and had no income at all. Although embarrassing we had to live in my brother's house who worked in Kiambu. Since that time we have had to work extremely hard to earn some income using all the available means. As a result of the hard work we have been able to build these uncompleted houses and we can at least live peacefully in it."

"I have experience a lot of hardship. First my house got burnt buy my Sister in law. By then i had only one house and my husband was an orphan. This really affected us. Then my son was also admitted in the ICU due to poisoning. This drained us financially"

"Receiving this money means food security for my family. I have a 4 acre piece of land for agriculture. During rain season I cultivate three acres . I do pay Ksh . 6000 to my neighbor who has oxen for agriculture. He does it for me after he is done with his piece of land. This makes me sometimes fail to get good harvest due to late cultivation. I harvest six bags of 90kg each from the three acres of land. This lasts for five months. I want to buy two oxen and a yoke at a cost of Ksh. 50000. I will use Ksh. 30000 to buy two cows for dairy farming. I will also use the remaining amount to pay school fees for my children."

"The biggest hardship has been lack of finances. Affording the right medical attention is really a challenge for me. Due to this, I haven't been even able to live a productive life. I'm a casual labourer earning at most 5 dollars a month which is too little to cater for basic needs."

"I have a number of students in various schools.Raising school fees has been one of hardest challenge . Nearly three quarter of the money I get from the economic activities I engaged myself in goes towards paying school fees. Mark you we have other commitments to take care of .It makes us inadequate and a real struggle for me and my family."

"As you can see we have just a single, small ,grass thatched house. It acts as our kitchen and at the same time a living room. There is inadequate space for use . Our intention is to build a better house that will be our living room .The one we currently have will be used for kitchen purposes. We intend to build a 24 iron sheet roofed house. It will cost us approximately USD 300 and also we will equip them with furnitures and fittings that will cost approximately USD 180. Also , we would want to hire land for tilling so that we can plant maize ."

"The biggest hardship has been food security. We normally depend on maize for subsistence ,it is our stable food here . Since the outbreak of maize disease sometimes in 2007 , harvesting maize has been a thing of the past. So we buy maize which sometimes we cannot afford. At such time we eat on one meal. Sometimes it is really unbearable ,we hardly afford a descent meal ."

"I am a school based student at Kisii university. I study a degree course in education . We have been struggling to pay for school fees because Iam a self sponsored student ,my husband has been working around the clock to look for school fees . We were forced to sell 0.5 acres of land to clear 2nd year fees. University education is very expensive , we recently hold a fundraiser to cater for the same which enabled me to clear the last academic year fees. Iam currently in fourth year and a total fees of USD 1030 is required. This help could not have come at a better time because Iam assured of clearing the fees and actualize my dream of being a substantive teacher."