"I used to pay for rent on the premises where I was running my business. My ambition was to one day build my own premise so as to avoid the monthly rental costs that I was incurring. This would have taken me a long time to save for the purpose of relocating to another place. Through the support from GiveDirectly, I was able to build my own business premise. The transfer also enabled me to purchase more stock to sell. This cost me KES 40,000 that I am currently running in my home of the transfer I received from GiveDirectly. To me, having my own shop premise where I will no longer be paying rent is the biggest difference in my daily life"

"I hope that I will have plastered my house and living in a decent house. I will save part of my monthly transfers to buy building materials such as cement and sand which I will use to plaster my house. This has been my dream for the last two years because smearing every month is tiresome and time-consuming. I would like to focus the resources used for smearing on other family requirements. I know I will have no more stress on smearing after plastering my house."

"The biggest difference in my daily life is that I now have my own motorcycle. Previously I had been employed by a neighbor to provide taxi services in my home town and the income that I was getting was little.This is because at the end of the day I had to pay a fixed amount to the owner and take home whatever remains. This prompted me to purchase my own immediately GiveDirectly sent me the transfer. I am glad that I earn my own income through the motorcycle which enables me to meet the household expenses and other family basic needs like providing daily food."

"The moment I received the recent transfer I was so happy. It was around 8 am when I saw the Mpesa message. I was on my way to the dam to fetch water so I decided to go back home and celebrate with my family because to me it was like a miracle. It was my first time receiving such a huge amount of money."

"I do Media Arts (Photography and videography) for a living and there are some equipment that I did not have that I have always wanted to buy. For the last few months, I have been saving some of my monthly transfers which I then combined with the most recent one and finally purchased the equipment that has really improved the quality of work."

"In the next six months of my life, I expect to have saved enough money and constructed a kitchen. Currently, this is my first priority because of the mess I am already in. With the sheep in the same room where I cook makes it unbearable. Food is one of the most delicate things to handle. This situation messes up with the hygiene of the area I do my cooking which would risk our health and life in general. Cleaning the area on a daily basis considering how far the water point makes life more difficult. That is why I couldn't think of something else first before making sure I had a separate structure to cook in."

"Now that I am done with my college yet has not come across any kind of formal employment, I want to start a second-hand shoe business in the next few months so that I can have a stable source of income and be able to fully support my parents especially with the household requirements. I have settled on shoe business because it is the kind of business that is always in season and does very well around here. It also does not require a large space and all I need is a small capital"

"In the next six months l expect to have completed plastering my house that I had started plastering and when I am through I will be staying in a nice plastered house where I will not repair it again using mad."

"I got married in a household whose economic activity is charcoal burning. My husband is daily involved in charcoal distribution business to Mombasa from the village using a motorbike. His earnings has enabled me to start a small shop within the village but its capital is still low. When I receive the cash transfer aid from Givedirectly, I plan to expand my shop business in order to have a reliable source of income. Part of the transfers will be spent on buying ten goats so that we start livestock raising. This will change our life for the better and this transformation is basically what receiving this money means to me."

"The biggest hardship I have faced is lack of sufficient funds to facilitate the household's basic needs. There is no money to promptly pay school fees, ploughing the fields and buying food."