"I heard the phone buzzing late at night, however I did not bother to read it. Early morning when I read the message, I was extremely happy because I was in debt and needed a lot of money to repay it."

"I plan to sell some of my chicken in December so that I can raise money to start up a business. In the next six months, I expect to have started a business and hopefully I will be earning a good income from it. This, I am sure shall improve my living standards by a great extent."

"Receiving this transfer means a lot to me. I believe after I harvest the onions I will put together with my next transfers and start up a business. I am thinking of boutique since the market within my locality is high and this will give me a great opportunity to sell clothes. This will enable me to have a sustainable source of income."

"Lack of parental support has been the biggest hardship in life. As my name suggests 'Jela', a Kiswahili word meaning prison, I was born at the time my father was in detention. And when he was finally released, he died after a year. Consequently, life thereafter became unbearable. The biggest blow now came when our mother who was then the only support system died after a short illness. What followed was family disintegration and everyone began fending for themselves. All of us who was in school dropped out and resorted to manual jobs to sustain their personal needs. At the moment, I live alone, and so are my siblings. "

"Lack of alternative employment opportunities has been the biggest hardship in our life. For over 5 years now, my husband has worked as a water vendor in Mombasa, and his daily wage being extremely low (less than $4 a day), and it has been hard for him to find a better job. As a result, sustaining the family's needs is sometimes uneasy. Consequently, we haven't been able to keep our children in school and fee arrears keep accruing every term. Receiving this money will be a relief to us, I will start a small business, preferably a vegetable store within the village."

"In 2015 I undertook a tailoring course and ever since I haven't been able to fully utilize the skills I acquired due to lack of adequate capital to purchase the requisite equipment and materials. At the moment I rely on a friend's sewing machine but since it is her sole source of income, it is usually hard to get a chance to expertise my skills. Receiving this money will enable me to establish a tailoring business. Therefore, I intend to use my first transfers in putting up the whole thing; from buying a machine, renting a working space to buying materials and other requirements. Having this up and running will not only enable me to sharpen my skills but also a source of income to the family. This will be a relief to my husband who at the moment is a motorcycle taxi driver in Mombasa. Though the nature of his work is strenuous, he has worked tirelessly to sustain the family. For the second transfers, we will invest in livestock raising. This will serve as our long term investment plan."

"In the next six months l expect to continue receiving money from give directly and spending the money to buy food stuffs and eat a well balanced diet."

"Initially I depended on casual labour to supplement what I get from my farm but due to my age this is no longer possible.I am not strong enough to do casual jobs and also to work in my farm.This has limited my income which in turn has made me struggle in getting basic needs like food."

"My expectation in the next six months is to focus on my cattle rearing and improve my poultry farm. I want to ensure that I meet most of my client's demand. I also want to ensure that I have at least two stable sources of income so that I don't get stranded in case I get a low season of either of the products"

"In the next six months, we shall have accumulated enough money to buy a dairy cow. The dairy cow shall bring great relief to us as a family especially on the cost of buying milk which has proven to be so costly to us."