"Lack of finance has been my big challenge, I usually rely on casual jobs(herding) which gives me little money to support myself. This also led to separation with my wife since I was not able to raise and provide for them."

"Receiving this money means that I will start an income-generating activity. I used to work in other people's farms as a casual laborer, mainly to pay school fees for my children and to buy food. When the children completed their college education, I stopped going for these hard labor jobs. I then developed a leg problem where my knees ache most of the time, making it difficult for me to comfortably move around. Because of this, I want to keep a cow, some sheep and start poultry keeping when I receive this money. I will build a poultry house and buy the birds for about $ 300. I will then buy two dairy cows for approximately $ 500. This initiative will provide me with a daily income from selling milk and eggs of about Kes $4 a day. This will be sufficient to make my life comfortable because I spend about $2 a day on household needs."

"The biggest hardship I have faced is that I hardly harvest any bag of maize when I plant. This is because I live in a semi-arid area and it does not rain consistently,also the maize are usually affected by a disease and we do not know the herbicides to be used in protecting it from the infestation.This forces me to purchase food for my family and I find it expensive as I cannot afford buying it everyday."

"The biggest hardship I have faced is financial constraints. With my age I cannot do hard jobs so I only depend on my one cow for milk to sell which earns me a total of Ksh 2700 per month. This is not enough to sustain my family needs such as food and clothing and other emergencies as hospital fee when it arises."

"The biggest hardship is financial constraints. I'm a motorbike rider on hire. I do not own my own motorbike meaning I have to hire one. Sometimes I do not get one to hire as we're also many doing this work and there are few motorbikes to hire.The money I earn from my motorbike business goes to food and other basic needs therefore I do not get to save up for family developments."

"In 2008 as I was about to sit for my Kenya Certificate of Primary School, my dad passed away which brought financial difficulty to our family. My mother had to sell part of her land and domestic animals to pay for my secondary education. After my form four education, I had to get married so that my husband could finance my tertiary education. This is the biggest hardship I have ever faced."

"The biggest hardship that I have ever faced in my life happened a year ago when I used to do the business of selling clothes during market days. The market days are usually distributed all through the week but in different centers. With the rising cost of living, I had to use part of my cash stock to cater to the basic needs of my family. I am also a widow and so I am the only one my kids depend on. It took me less than a year to run out of stock and cash. As of now, I am just a subsistence farmer toiling on my farm just to make ends meet."

"The biggest hardship I have faced in life is lack of finances to pay school fees for my children and having my own home. I am a single mother with nothing to depend on, I got married at a very young age but unfortunately the marriage did not work and we had to separate and I came back to my parents home with 5 children. The business that I do gives me as little as 150 kenya Shillings a day which is not enough to cater for food and paying school fees for my children. Hence the difficulty to save money to purchase land."

"She used the cash to purchase items like mattress and blankets..She also purchased kitchen utensils such as plates,,buckets and pots..The remaining cash was spent on purchasing food.."

"Givedirectly gives people unconditional cash which helps them to improve their living standards..it also empowers them as they make their own decisions on how to spend the cash."