"I am normally very happy in the evening when I am resting after a hard day's work of sourcing for water.Currently in our village, there is shortage of water and we are forced to go to bamba town which is roughly 3kms away in search of this precious commodity. Since there is no money to hire motorbikes,we are forced to carry 20 litre jerricans on our heads so many trips. This exercise is very tiring and when coupled with the hot sun and other duties like cooking and cleaning, I normally feel very tired by evening and only wish to rest."

"The happiest part of my day is afternoon hours especially after lunch. I relax and get time for doing other domestic work and fetching water."

"I thank Give Directly for having changed my life. I am a peasant farmer and at times I do casual work like weeding, fetching water for my neighbours to get daily bread for my family. I have school-going children thus I do burn charcoal and sell in order to get extra capital to pay their school fees, at times I am forced to sell at a throwaway price because many people are selling the same and buyers are less. Since I started receiving money from Give Directly I thank God I am staying a peaceful life with no worries, I had a lot of stress and financial worries before I started receiving money from Give Directly. I pay school fees for my children on time and with a lot of ease. I am also on good terms with my husband since finance was a big issue in my family and we could quarrel frequently due to this."

"My life is currently different from the way it four months ago in that I constructed a new house which more decent and spacious enough. The biggest achievement in the new house is that it doesn't leak whenever it rains. I built an iron-roofed house which helps in collecting rainwater. It does not leak as compared to the grass thatched house that I was living in a few days ago. I was also able to boost my business which is currently doing well."

"Our next goal is to join hands with other villagers and use part of our transfer to raise money for buying water tanks. The first round we had a similar saving plan which was successful and each one of us now has a heifer. We are planning to buy the water tanks because water has been the biggest crises for us. This will save us from the menace of water shortage, especially during the dry seasons."

"Having a stable source of income has been my greatest desire. For over many years now, I have depended on casual jobs that are hard to come by to sustain the family. My husband, on the other hand, is a water vendor in Mombasa, and he uses a hand-drawn cart to ferry water around the city. It a strenuous job and in most cases he is unable to meet our needs. Therefore, we intend to use a huge part of our transfers in starting a kiosk business. This will be our constant source income. Apart from that, we will invest in goat rearing. It is a viable practice in our region since it is not labor-intensive. This will serve as a long-term investment plan. And that is what receiving this money means to me."

"My income from my charcoal trade business is never enough to sustain my family needs.In a month I normally manage to make roughly Ksh.1500 yet the process of getting the logs and even burning the charcoal itself is normally very tiring and hectic. My husbands income from vending water in Mombasa is also very littleIn a good month, he only manages to send me ksh.1300. With a family of ten children who need to be fed,clothed and even be taken to school not to mention handle other emergencies, it has become a daily struggle for me to work extra to raise even more funds.As such, in my household,financial constraint is the biggest hardship that I face."

"I spent my first transfer for purchasing a blanket, water drum, utensils, construction materials (doors, windows , 12 bags of cement, 2 trips of sand and 1000 bricks). I used these materials for renovating my house. I also spent this money to pay the builders"

"My additional goal in life is to build a spacious iron sheet house for my family. The one I am currently living in is grass-thatched and I have to go to the river to fetch water even during the rainy season. Having an iron sheet thatched house will allow me to collect rainwater for domestic use especially during the rainy season."

"I will finally realize my dream of venturing into agri-business upon receiving this money. 100USD of my transfer will go building a green house for planting tomatoes, spinach and pepper. Few people have ventured into this type of investment, thus farmers from a nearby county usually come over to our towns to sell us such produce at a higher price, thus practicing this kind of business will be of great advantage to me. It is also in my mind to employ one of my neighbours to water, fertilise and weed the plants since i am usually busy in my agrovet business during the day so that he can earn some income(ksh200) dailyto support his children's education."