"Seven of my children are in primary school, with the eldest in grade seven and the youngest in grade one. Since my husband died a year ago I have been struggling to provide for them. Raising money for school fees is the main concern since they are constantly sent home for arrears. I have no form of income, I rely on my brother who works in Mombasa as a motorcycle driver. Most times he is only able to send us money for food leaving me to squeeze in money for school."

"I have not had both a mattress and a bed for a couple of years. I have therefore been forced to sleep on maize sacks. This was an uncomfortable situation because I could always wake up feeling pain in my ribs. This more often subjected me to discomfortable situations which I had to bear with all the time. Painfully, even all my 6 children were experiencing the same challenge. As soon as I received my transfer, I spent KES 2,800 on buying a new mattress and I am glad that there is an improvement in my life. I also spent the rest of the transfer, KES 200 on buying food since I did not have sufficient food. My motorcycle taxi business has been less profitable in the recent past due to a hike in fuel prices." (Occupation: Motorcycle or bicycle taxi)

"Owing to the current situation of lacking job opportunities, my main desire is to own a motorbike so that I can be self-employed and support my family. This is going to be achieved through the GiveDirectly transfers. I am going to purchase a goat every month at 2000KES from the monthly transfers for ten installments. I will let the goats multiply and on the second year, I will sell all of them and use the cash to acquire a motorbike." (Occupation: Motorcycle or bicycle taxi)

"I had no means of survival towards the end of last year as we were nearing the festive season. I had a fractured hand that made me stop the motorcycle business that I used to do. My wife was not happy with me and she started throwing tantrums because she was worried that her children will not have new clothes by Christmas time. I decided to leave and try my luck during that time and luckily I managed to get a job that earned me 1000 KES. I used this money to buy clothes and foodstuffs for my children. This brought happiness and joy into my life because my family was able to celebrate Christmas as others."

(Occupation: Motorcycle or bicycle taxi)

"I am a local tailor and I have been operating a tailoring business in the nearby village market. The business was not doing well because I did not have money to buy variety of materials and since I was not getting enough money, I was not able to pay rent for quite a long time since I was struggling to sustain the business. Being enrolled in the program was a good opportunity for me to expand the business and make it thrive so that I can help my husband with family responsibilities. I spend KES 23000 of my first transfer to settle rent arrears of KES 7000 and buy more materials for my business and spend the balance to buy motorcycle that I had already paid 70% of the price. I have already deployed the motorbike into motorcycle taxi business."

"When I was enrolled in the program, my goal was to buy a motorcycle so that I can operate a taxi business of my own because I was then employed. I was able to achieve this and now, I have a new goal whereby I want to build a permanent house for my family to replace the muddy one that we live in."

"I have never owned livestock before and I was the laughing stock of the village because I come from a community which values livestock. Right now, I own nine goats and I at last, have a sense of belonging. My husband was able to repair his motorcycle and get back to work and he's now managing to provide"

"Being a motorcycle rider with the high cost of fuel in the country, the business has not been doing so well. Therefore earning daily income has been a great challenge, since the motorbike does not belong to me so I am forced to pay the owner at the end of each day." (Occupation: Motorcycle or bicycle taxi)

"Though the motorcycle taxi business cannot fully meet our household needs, it is much better than subsistence farming. Six months ago we bought a motorcycle on a loan and has increased our income. This has brought joy to our family because we not only depend on subsistence farming which has been affected by drought." (Occupation: Motorcycle or bicycle taxi)