"My wife died eight years ago and since none of my children stays around, I have been struggling to do everything by myself. Sometimes I don't manage to cook and end up relying on neighbors and well wishes for food."

"While bringing up my kids, I used to carry heavy luggage to the market in order to sell and provide for them. This left my back and legs weak, at this age I rarely sleep at night due to back pains and I have been unable to afford health care. With this money I hope I will be able to access better medical care and ill be able to enjoy my sleep."

"Receiving this money means owning a new house and a business at the same time. My current house is very old plus many cracks on the walls. This has been life-threatening because the weak walls might collapse anytime from now. I am always worried whenever I retire to bed at night. I am planning to use 40,000KES to construct a two-bedroom house for my family of eight. One bedroom will host my children while the second bedroom will be for my husband and I. I will use a further 30,000KES to start a modern grocery in the neighboring trading center. The profits from the grocery will help me assist my husband in raising our children because I will chip in whether it comes to paying school fees, buying food and any other family need."

"Food insecurity is the biggest challenge I am currently facing. I can no longer afford to provide my family with at least two meals a day. Prolonged drought has affected our area and nothing pleasant can be seen on the farms. The cow I relied own died a few months ago because she could no longer survive under the current drought situations. I am always in pain whenever I come back home with nothing to prepare for my children."

"The biggest challenge I am currently facing is lack of money to sustain my family. I am currently jobless idling around in the village. This has forced my wife to go for a housekeeper job in the neighborhood something I was not happy about but I was left with no option but accept. I am currently not making any financial contributions towards the welfare of my family. This is a big shame according to our culture where a man is expected to be the breadwinner of the family."

"I completed my secondary school studies two years ago. However, I am yet to join any institution of higher learning because my parents don't have money to pay for my school fees. College and university fees in Kenya are higher compared to primary and secondary schools. I applied for a medical engineer at a college in the nearest city. I am expected to join in the next 8 months. GiveDirectly transfers are coming at the right time and I will use the money to pay my school fees. I am planning to use 80,000KES to cater for my school fees as prescribed for in the fee structure. I believe that my skills in medical engineering will guarantee me a job. Getting a job will be a great achievement given that with a job, I will definitely earn a salary which will be helpful in meeting my needs and those of my family back home."

"I have always believed that education is the only key to success. I have been struggling to educate my children because of lack of a sustainable income to cater for their school fees. I have been relying on charcoal burning occupation which is energy draining with low returns at the end. I manage to get a maximum of three 90kg bags of charcoal in a month. One bag sells at 800KES meaning I only make 2,400KES a month, an amount that can not sustain my family. Seeing my children home simply because I don't have money to pay their school fees is very painful. I am planning to use the entire GiveDirectly transfer to pay school fees for my children. This will assure my children of enough study time in school which will translate to improved academic performance."

"The biggest challenge I am facing right now is the inability to take my children to institutions of higher learning. Out of the 10 children, 7 are currently in school. The challenge is that after secondary school, I have nothing to help them proceed with college and university. This is very painful because my desire had been seeing my children excel in universities and get the appropriate skills to compete with others in the job market."

"I would like to build a house for myself to be able to jumpstart my life. I'm currently living with my mother and sleeping in my brother's house. This condition makes it impossible to marry my fiance to whom I have been engaged for about six months. I have been meaning to finalize on everything but I still don't have somewhere to take her and means to take care of her. For that reason, I would also like to buy a motorcycle for taxi operations so that I can get a source of income."

"As a housewife I have been fully depending on my husband for everything financial. This isn't healthy and right now I'm planning to train in hairdressing with the money I'll get so that I can also support my him. I would also like to purchase some equipment that are necessary to set up my own salon when I'm done. Of late my husband has been unable to effectively pay school fees for our five children who are in grade school estimated at 1500 KES each per academic term."