"Poor state of health is the biggest hardship that I face in life. For the past eight years,I have been forced to live in pain after an unsuccessful kidney operation. As a consequence, I have been rendered helpless and incapable of performing heavy duty jobs. Due to deficiency of jobs to engage in, my source of income greatly dwindled and my wife not being able to cope with the situation any longer,ended up abandoning me and taking with her two of my daughters. As if that was not enough,eight months ago,while working as a cook in a school,hot water for cooking "ugali" accidentally poured on me severely burning my stomach region. The wounds have refused to heal and as a result,I am once again in a position whereby I cannot go to work to take care of my son who my wife left behind. I feel so frustrated because even my relatives seem to be getting tired of supporting me. I am hardly capable of renovating my house whose rooftop was blown away by heavy winds let alone feed my son and pay for his schooling."

"Gone to school.. have been at home for two years---happy that am in school........Improved my house,, water inside no more"

"I expect my life to change in the next six months in that I will have finished renovating my house. I started fixing a new roof because I have an old one which has holes hence part of my house still lets in drops of water whenever it rains because I have not completed fixing the roof. The shame of having visitors while in this situation is too much. Although I have not finished renovating it, I am seeing this being completed hence I won't be having sleepless nights because of this situation."

"I used my most recent transfer to Improve my house. I have been living in a mad-walled house and during the rainy season the water gets into our house and this predisposes my children to cold and flu. I have been saving my money since I started receiving my transfer and I can now improve my house. I decided to cement the house to avoid rain water getting in to our house since we are approaching the rainy season."

"I received the notification early in the morning as I had gone to fetch water from a nearby borehole. On checking to confirm who the sender was, I was instantly filled with happiness as I went through the message from GiveDirectly that I had received my first transfer from them."

"I managed to take my daughter to a private school where there is quality education and she has really improved on her academic performance. I never had an opportunity to get better education and therefore would not like that my children go through the mistake again. Education is light and I feel ashamed that I lack any skills to compete for the job opportunities that has made life very challenging to me. I bought a water pump that I intend to use for horticultural farming. I have a piece of land that borders a permanent river that I would like to irrigate during dry season when there is scarcity of vegetables, onions and tomatoes. There are two schools and a local market neaby that I am targeting as potential consumers. As a young, vibrant and self driven man, this will be my self-employment and also other villagers that I shall contract for casual labor. I bought a solar lighting system, this has saved me a lot from the daily budget of paraffin which at times was never enough. My children can nowardays have their studies and do homework without any worries of lamps going off like before when I used tin lamps. "

"The additional goal for my life for the next four months is to buy a water tank for collecting rainwater. I chose to buy the water tank to avoid the tedious task of fetching river water. Besides, I will be having more clean and safe water in my home. Thus, I will save the money that I receive from GiveDirectly to finance the project."

"Now I am so happy seeing my mother living in a very good two-room semipermanent house. Now she can get clean water which she harvests from our iron-roofed house, therefore, she no longer gets to go to neighbours place to fetch clean water for domestic use."

"My life has greatly improved in that, I own livestock and a bicycle which I wouldn't be able to buy alone. In the past, I at times used to cultivate my crops out of season since I had to wait for other people's oxen to finish working for them. This in turn led to poor yields hence my family would starve due to food shortage. In addition, I didn't have a transport means for fetching water, taking my family members to seek medical attention and among others."

"I am a casual labour. I work at a white man's plantation more than 10 kilometers away. Every day, I wake up at 4:30 am to prepare breakfast and lunch for my children before taking on a two-hour trek to my work station. I would later come back late in the evening exhausted with the idea of repeating the same the next day. All this hectic routine thanks to a harsh climatic conditions in our area that has seen crops fail to germinate every year due to lack of water. The wages I get at the end of the month is spent repaying debts I had accumulated throughout the month. There's nothing left to safe since I still have to pay fees for my three children. It's even harder given the fact that am a single mother. This is the biggest hardship I've faced in my life."