"Food shortage and hunger have been the biggest hardship I faced in life. I rely on casual jobs to feed my family and what I earn is not enough for us. We at times eat less preferred food like tea and sweet potatoes for lunch or supper."

"When I receive this money I will buy a cow with KES 25000, also I will budget KES 40000 to construct a two roomed iron sheet house for my children. I will clear school fees arears of KES 20000 of my son in secondary school to enable him study without disturbance of being sent to collect fee balances. For the remaining KES 15000 I will buy food and clothing's for family members."

"My biggest hardship I faced is when I lost job due to covid-19. I have a family of 6 members and we use two packets of flour in a day. Upon loosing the job, my family had two go without food for a long period. That is something that made me suffer sychologically."

"The biggest hardship I have ever faced in my life is food insecurity. I am a housewife and rely on my husband who does a security job. The money he gets is so little and can't sustain the family needs. Due to this, I have been struggling to put food on the table. Sometimes the children go to school without proper meal's or without food completely hence I feel so bad and can't do anything about it."

"My life is different than how it would have been if I never received the transfers in that I have build two better and spacious houses. I depend on small scale farming and the harvest that we get is only for consumption. Whenever I have extra harvest I sell to earn an income to pay the school fees for my children in various schools. I didn't had any savings to buy the building material. When I received the second transfer I found it wise to invest on building a better house for my family. Currently we live in a spacious house. Whenever I have visitors I do not shy to welcome them because I have a spacious rooms. My children are so happy because they have their own rooms where they can do assignment without any disturbance. We are so grateful for the support because GiveDirectly has changed our living standard."

"In my opinion GiveDirectly does well by giving money to the poor in the community to build better houses and to buy dairy cows. I do not find anything that GiveDirectly did not do well."

"The biggest difference in my daily life is that I have bought a heifer and a oxen. I do small scale farming and casual jobs in the village. The amount of money that I get through this is so small and only for consumption. I had no other source of income to enable me buy the livestock. I buy milk daily and this is so costly for me. When I received the transfer I felt so happy because GiveDirectly enabled me to own a dairy cow. Currently I have a heifer and a oxen. When my heifer reproduce in the next future I will be able to get enough milk for my family and even sell the surplus at the market to earn an income. The oxen I will use on ploughing my farm. This will ease my work and enable me to dig a bigger farm. I am so happy because GiveDirectly has changed my living standard. It had enable me own livestock project which could have taken quite some time to get it. I have that I will improve this dairy farming and devote all my time on doing this."

"In my opinion, GiveDirectly does well by giving out unconditional cash transfers to people. By doing so, one is able to improve his/her lifestyle through building houses and acquiring assets like land and livestock. I find nothing that GiveDirectly does not do well."

"Since the demise of my wife six years ago, my life has never been the same again. She was engaged in a business of buying and selling maize and I was employed as a casual laborer in a tea factory. Catering for household expenditure was not a big deal unlike today where life has become extremely hard. I had to leave my job in order to take care of my children who were still young by then. I had to do manual jobs within the village which is hard to come by and when I get one, the money is hardly enough to cater to a family of five. When I get one, I go home with approximately KES 150 a day. In this case, financial inadequacy has been the biggest hardship I have faced in life."

"I depend on livestock farming as my reliable source of livelihood to bring up my family of 8 members. I have desired to boost it but I lack the financial capacity. After receiving the transfer, I invested $300 to acquire 10 more goats. This is a future investment that will help me in educating my children who are still in primary school. I also spent 50 dollars to part of the fee arrears of the children. Furthermore, I used $40 to purchase building poles which I am planning to use in constructing a decent house for the family. This is because the one I had is grass thatched and leaks during the rainy season. The remaining amount assisted me in purchasing enough food for the family."