"I was at home when I received the SMS saying that I had received the transfer from GiveDirectly. I was filled with happiness and I immediately informed my children of the good news. They were so happy too and we all celebrated and thanked God and GiveDirectly for making it happen."

"I felt so happy and I thanked God when I received the Mpesa SMS saying that I had received the transfer from GiveDirectly. I informed my husband about it and he was very happy too. I felt like poverty had left my family since I was going to achieve my desires. We started planning immediately on what we are going to do with it. Thank you GiveDirectly, may God bless you so that you can continue helping others."

"Having a family under decent roofed house is any parent's desires. I had built an iron roofed house while I was still young in my marriage. This has been our shelter since then but over time it roof has rusted making it a porus roofs. To me receiving this money means a decent and conducive house for my family. I will not again be rained on again like my current condition."

"I have desired to give my children a better life by educate them. As a subsistence farmer, raising much enough to cater for family needs is a big challenge. The little resources in my family has been the biggest hardship I have ever faced in my life, I feel bad when I am not able to pay my children school fees on time at same time can't afford their basic needs to their satisfactory."

"Receiving this money means I will be able to pay school fees for my children in secondary school,I have my two sons in a local day school.last year the older son was in secondary school only but now his younger brother joined form one and the burden of paying fees doubled. The fees was sh10000 but now it is sh 20000 per year with my small scale farming it cannot support me paying all this school fees but with the help of the many from Givedirectly my children will get education"

"The biggest hardship in my life is when I had to abandon school at form one as a result of school fees problems because my father was poor and could not pay it. I went to look at after someone's cattle in silibwet and i was payed sh1500 Per month . The situation was not the best resort since my dream was to get good education nevertheless I quited later and joined a welding work shop and learned welding skills."

"The biggest hardship I have faced in my life is when I married a brought my wife home, I did not have any investments and was not working. Live was a struggle until I had to go to Nairobi to look for a job but I was not lucky to secure one.i could not manager to support anymore so I came back home and decided to venture into subsistence family to feed the family"

"Having my own motorbike has brought the biggest difference in my daily life. Since my spouse is an experienced driver and for all those years he was employed by his friends and he was paid on commission. The money was too little for the family upkeep and paying for our children's fees was not easy. Because sometimes he was not even paid simply because maybe the given day was unproductive. For now, I am hopeful and happier because currently using my own motorbike, and whatever he is getting for the day is all ours. Meeting our family's needs has become easy and I no longer struggle like in the past years."

"I was raised by a humble background where alcohol my mother brewed and sold illicit brews to sustain us. I lost my father when I was a very young boy. Following the hardships that we were facing as a family, I was forced to drop out of school when I was in class three. As such, not pursuing my education goals and dreams would be treated as the biggest hardship I have faced in life because I cannot equally compete with other candidates in the job market."

"My husband accidentally stepped on a rusty nail that adversely injured him. As he was seeking medication, he learned that he was diabetic. As such, he had to undergo some surgery that led to the loss of his toes. Though it is now two years since the unfortunate incident struck, he is yet to fully recover because he still has some wounds. More so, we struggled in vain to foot a hospital bill that rose to about 1.2 million shillings. As a family, we find that the accident acts as the biggest hardship we have faced because we have spent lots of our resources and my husband has not recovered. Besides, we still have to clear the hospital bill."