"Trekking to school makes my academic life so strenuous. The distance between home to school is approximately 3km. Imagine walking for 6km every day. Sometimes I feel like giving up but when I think of my future, I keep pressing on."

"Lack of school fees is the current challenge I am facing. I currently have fee arrears totaling 15,000 KES. My parents have failed to clear the balance because the money they make from charcoal burning is not sufficient. The 4,000 KES they get in a month mainly sorts food and health requirements."

"Lack of a reliable source of income is the main challenge that my family is currently facing. Imagine having a family of three children without any source of income! This is the situation that is giving me sleepless nights. My main economic activity has been subsistence farming. However, due to the prolonged drought, farming has become impossible. I am now left depending on my husband who works as a hired palm wine broker to meet the basic needs. What is more worrying is the fact that he earns KES 300 in a day or two which is solely used for food. I am even afraid incase any of my child falls sick at the moment. This has renders us hopeless. I intend to fix this by using a portion of the cash transfers (KES 20000) to start a Kiosk in the village. This will be a great income generating activity that will salvage my family from the financial crisis."

"The thought of not knowing how to raise school fees is what eats up my mind. Considering that my parents are jobless, I already applied for bursaries but again, this has never materialized since I am yet to be awarded. This has stressed me a lot and I have the fear of missing classes. Hence, I consider financial instability as my greatest challenge."

"I have 5 children, all are still at primary level. Their school expenses have been a burden to me and this has outwitted my struggle to fully keep them in school. My greatest desire has been to invest more in my children's education to ensure they have a good time in school. This will boost their chance of having decent jobs in the future and hence, a better life. On the other hand, I will also venture into livestock keeping especially goats to have a long-term project that I can depend on. Thus, this is generally what receiving this money means to me."

"Imagine in a term staying at home for almost 2 weeks before returning to school! This is a very discouraging life because I always feel so down when I find myself at home. Since my parents are jobless, I depend on bursaries which are also not reliable because I always miss out. What a miserable life! I, therefore, consider financial instability as my biggest challenge."

"It has been my desire to renovate the house where I am carrying out my tailoring business. The room lacks floor and the soil dirtifies clothes during sewing. This has made it almost impossible to cut and sew white clothes. In addition, the job is also affected by the use of old sewing machine and lack of materials for making school uniforms. GiveDirectltly cash will help me in solving all these problems. With 20 000KES, I am going to plaster the room and also make a cemented floor. I plan to spend 15 000 to purchase a singer sewing machine and 30 000 will be spent towards buying school uniform materials which can make up to 20 000KES profit."

"I am a widow and old, staying with my grandchildren who are in primary school. Their father died and two years later their mother got married to another man. Since then I have been struggling to cater for their education. I have no strength to work due to my age. I depend on well wishes for assistance, a situation that pains my heart. Sometimes, I feel like my granddaughter will not achieve their dream of going to University. Due to this, a lack of money is the main challenge that I am currently facing."

"My food vending business used to give me good returns but currently, the inflation rate in the country has affected it. On a good day, I would make a profit of 500 KES but all these changed and nowadays the highest I could make per day is 150 KES. I am afraid at this rate I will end up closing down the business because of lack of money to add more stock. The thought of the business collapsing due to lack of capital is stressful and depressing."

"When I was a teacher before retirement I was in a community SACCO that I was using to do some savings. Since I retired my pension money has not been enough to take care of the responsibilities in the family and remain with some for savings. My plans for the SACCO were to save and take a loan to start a business that can give me good returns. I desired to continue with the savings but unfortunately, lack of money hindered me from doing so. Receiving these transfers will enable me to continue with my savings plan so that I can have enough shares to give me a good loan."