"Prolonged period of drought has been the biggest hardship we have faced in life. This has led to low crop production and subsequently unable to meet School expenses of my children. The land under cultivation is 0.6 acre of land where we have grown maize for home consumption yet we initially depend on it to meet other household expenditures. Out of this, we harvest approximately 4 bags of maize which hardly enough to cater for the entire family. This has forced my husband to venture into casual to supplement from the little we get from the piece of land."

"Hunger"

"I will build a house with the money"

"Sleeping with empty stomach"

"My current source of income is charcoal burning, a job that most people in our area have depended on. This job comes with many challenges like time-consuming and low paying. With all these challenges, I am still forced to work extra hard to get the money that can cater to some of our very basic needs mostly the food. This means other basic needs like good housing and paying school fees are not fully met and this has affected my children's school performance and health-wise too. Therefore, financial instability is generally the biggest hardship that I have ever faced."

"Lack of food"

"I live in a village where owning an iron-roofed house is a luxury and I have ever wished to have one to be accorded the respect that people with such houses are given. When I heard about GiveDirectly's cash grants, my dream of owning a spacious iron-roofed house started to become real due to the unconditionality of the money. The priority once I receive this money is to spend utmost of $350 to construct the house and this will have a boost in realizing my dream. On the other hand, I also plan to start livestock keeping to have a long term project that will assist me to sort out any emergency in the future. To start with, I will buy 10goats for $30 each. All this will have a positive change to my livelihood and eventually, a happy life."

"I have been dreaming of building a better house. Living in a single-roomed house with a family of four is not enough. There is also no privacy for my grown-up children. I have not been able to build before because I have three children who are in secondary education and one in university yet we depend on subsistence farming for livelihood. Receiving this money will enable me to purchase building materials and pay school fees for my children."

"Beimg a single parent i am lacking alot to take care of my children"

"I will buy things i am needing"