"Being illerate, uskilled and unable to secure a good job to support my family's needs especially education for my children has been the biggest hardship in my life. Casual activities like Charcoal vending is what I have been doing to support my family. This job earns me very little income of less than 2 dollar per day which I use it to feed my family of 9 members. My children are normally send out of school due to lack of school fees something that has affected their performance. I am constantly worried that they I may fail to educate them as a parent something that has taken away my joy in life."

"My household majorly depends on motorcycle taxi business operated by my husband. We are happy to have this source of income even though it is not a stable and it doesn't earn us enough to gather for our needs and savings. To me receiving this money means a change in life. I am planning to spend much of it on livestock. I feel my life will greatly change in that I will have added asset that can give us more milk for household use and sales. I will have calves that will be my future financial securities thus I foresee a better life to come."

"Financial constrains has been the biggest hardship we have faced in life. Having two children in college level became an eye opener in acknowledging the fact that having an alternative source of income is a necessary evil in attaining financial success. Life became unbearable to an extent of forcing my husband to work as a guard in the city with a meagre salary of Ksh 15,000. We had opted to sell part of our land in order to educate my children but we only own 3 acres of land which is hardly enough to solve all our financial problems. Our future plan therefore, is to venture into dairy farming to fend for our family without much hustle."

"I engage in a hardware business in town. To start up this business one year ago, I applied for a loan of $3180 capital from my supplier. Since then, I have been able to repay $2180 hence he still owes me $1000. I usually spend 60% of my monthly profit repaying the debts. Through Give Directly funds however, I will soon be able to repay all debts after boosting my business hence I will be able to keep all my earnings to myself."

"For the past six years in this place where we live, food crops have continually failed to reach maturity and therefore there has been no harvest. This has posed a big challenge on how am able to provide for my family since we have to buy everything including that we used to produce from the farm."

"Accessing clean drinking water in this area is quite a hustle. We go for close to 5 kilometers to get to the nearest water point and because it serves almost the entire village chances of it getting dirty are high. We carry it on our backs using 20 liter Jerry cans. Personally, I make 7 trips daily to get enough that can sustain me for the whole day. This exercise often leaves me with a lot of backaches that last days if not weeks. I get some rest when we are lucky to get some rain. I do this single handedly because my husband is culturally not allowed to help me do such kind of jobs"

"I have an epileptic child, he has been with the condition since birth and we face many challenges taking care of him.sometimes we can't afford to take him for medication or purchase drugs that cost 40USD per month and the child conditions gets to the worst. Other times we can't find drugs in the nearby pharmacies and hospitals which are quite far (approx 35km) from home.so when I am not able to get the drugs it forces me to come back home and take care of him here."

"Having to feed my family is the biggest nightmare I have ever faced in my entire life. We depend on farming to sustain our lives and this venture can be very discouraging especially in this region due to very unpredictable weather patterns. We normally experience prolonged seasons of drought which is hurting farmers big time. Personally, I farm an area of 0.5-acre piece, and what I get every harvesting season is hardly enough to feed my family for even 2 months. Last year, for example, I harvested half a sack of maize from the very same piece of land. This is just a drop in the sea considering that I have 11 children to feed for an entire year."

"Receiving this money means that my family shall always have sufficient milk for consumption. We have been purchasing milk from our neighbors but at times we cannot afford due to lack of money. Since milk is one of the most volatile food items in our household, owning a cow will ensure the continued presence of relatively sufficient amounts of the product. Overall, we shall greatly appreciate GiveDirectly for the boost."

"As a subsistence farmer, the unpredictable and extreme climatic conditions that we have been experiencing adversely impact my crop fields. As such, we have been encountering huge losses due to the harsh conditions. Also, we have been exhausting our food reserves before the beginning of a subsequent harvesting period since we are realizing poor yields."