"We always stuggle to make both ends meet. The main challenge here is to find money which i can used to buy food."

"It was around 10 am when I was heading to the farm when I heard the notification from my phone. I was so happy when I saw an Mpesa message from Give Directly. I had finally found the hope of achieving my goals through the financial support."

"Its been my desire to build a new house since my current house is grass thatched. However, for many years now, I have not not been able to upgrade it at my own cost. Receiving this transfer has uplifted my living standard because I managed to buy enough building materials such as iron sheets and building poles and constructed a new iron roofed house. I feel building this new iron roofed house is the biggest difference in my daily life. It would have taken me a long time to accomplish this dream."

"The biggest difference in my daily life is that I managed to purchase my own piece of land. The previous one was very small less than an acre and this leads to low harvesting products hence poverty. Also since it was a family land I never had the pride to refer to it as my own farm. Therefore after getting my transfer that was the top priority to purchase one however expensive it is. And I am glad i made it and it has made me proud since I never thought I would achieve this."

"I felt very happy when I saw the SMS on my phone indicating that we had received the transfer from GiveDirectly. I felt a ray of hope in me because I knew that what I have always wanted to do is going to be fulfilled and my family’s life is going to change for the better. I thanked God and GiveDirectly for answering my prayers."

"This money means the finalization of our project in building a house. Now we need to do plastering, floor and window,door frames. Since transport is also a problem in my village,we will also purchase a bicycle to ease transport problems. We shall also buy fertilizer in order to increase our farming capacity and harvest since our yield is always minimal most of the times."

"I will use this money to buy chicken wire and to build a modern poultry house. I had started rearing chicken but they were foraging from one place to another, therefore they created a major conflict between neighbors and I. They were destroying neighbour's crops.My plan now is to buy a chicken wire so that I control chicken movements."

"Receiving this money means food security for my family. I'll use 600 dollars from this donation to buy food. I'll buy food stuffs weekly from the local shops around given that I lack the appropriate food storage facilities. Food is a basic necessity of life and no one can live without food. In addition to this I'll use 300 dollars to buy two indeginous dairy cows to supplement my family with milk. I can also sell a certain quantity of the milk to attend to my few financial obligations."

"The biggest hardship in my life is lack of enough money to sustain my family. As a widow, I have been struggling to raise my family since loosing my beloved husband. At times, the family lacks some important basic necessities of life such as food and clothing. In addition to this, my children are unable to proceed past secondary school education."

"I usually get asthma attacks and this affects my daily household chores such as carrying water buckets from the nearest water source,,cooking,washing and others."