"My life is currently different from how it was four months ago in that I am a relaxed woman since I no longer go for hard casual jobs like before when it was the main source of income. We had been doing well as family in farming when we had oxen till the time when our father fell sick forcing us to sell the oxen to meet his medical bills. We started falling now that we had nothing to help us in farming and the children school fees were overwhelming to us leading to our pieces of land being idle and also lack of food in our family and too much to spend on basic needs that could be produced again. I am currently happy that I actively make good use of our land and I see more food for my family and surpluses to sell to meet other needs."

"The Kalenjin culture has lots of reservations when it comes to women rights, one of which is the ownership of land. I am unmarried and currently reside in my late parent's land amongst my brothers. I am just a caretaker. I live here a very worried person because deep down I know someday my brothers are going to demand what is culturally theirs. My biggest distress is the thought of being rendered homeless in future. This is the biggest hardship I've faced in my life. "

"It's been more than twenty years since my husband and I separated due to his mental illness. Since then, I have had to single handedly cater for my children's basic needs such as food, education, medication etc. With little and unreliable income due to scarcity of trees caused by massive deforestation, my charcoal business has not been doing well. My children's education suffers the most as they are constantly kicked out of school due to huge fee balances. "

"In the next six months, I expect my life to have greatly improved in that I will not be spending as much as I do currently since my farming will have improved hence will have better products. I expect to have enough food and surpluses to see to meet other financial needs in my family. I expect to have gotten enough money to buy a cow that will always be my proud to own it."

"It was around 7 am when I received the mobile money message from GiveDirectly. I felt happy and I thanked God for using GiveDirectly to relieve us from poverty in my village."

"My first priority is to invest in a new business. I plan to open a salon and a cosmetics shop in Ruiru. I will first pay the premises rent and buy a blowdry and other items I might need for the salon. Secondly, I will use it to buy a dryer, and other cosmetics. I currently work as a hairdresser and I have acquired some experience, I feel I am more than capable to start my own business which will enable me to save and in future buy land outside Mathare and build a house for my mother. I value her so much and would want to give her a comfortable life, where she lacks nothing. Lastly, I want to buy some household items like a television and a water tank to store water due to water shortages we constantly face in Mathare. I need a television so as to stay updated with the current events and even watch movies and series. I am an introvert and I like staying indoors, I tend to sleep alot when I am free and would want to be entertained once in a while by programmes on the television."

"On my usual day, I wake up in the morning prepare my children for school, if there is food in the house they eat, when there is no food they go to school hungry. I then leave for work to Eastleigh, I wash clothes for Somalis although it depends if they like me from my appearance then they can allow me to wash their clothes. I work till 3:30 pm in the evening. When I am done I can stick around incase of any other job that my arise, if I fail to get work I go back home, do my house chores, prepare evening food for my child for when they come out of school especially the one with ulcers since she does not eat maize and beans in school. Later I relax as I prepare to cook dinner, we have our dinner, say our prayers and sleep. In my free time, I go to church or relax in my house that is on Sunday. The rest of the days I spend working trying to get an income to feed my family."

"I was woken up by a message alert at 2 am on my phone and I was curious to know who could have sent a message at that hour. On checking, I realized that it was a message from GiveDirectly, informing me that my first transfer had finally been sent. I felt happy for the money as I began to plan on how I would spend it to improve my living standard."

"I rely on casual work and for the last two months, I haven't been able to secure any job. This left me to be financially down because I had spent most of my savings so when I received the recent transfer I contributed part of it on our weekly Merry-go-round because I hadn't made any contribution for the whole month. A portion of the I spent on the debts which I had borrowed two weeks ago from our savings group to pay for both my medication and my spouse's medication."

"I added stock to my business with part of the recent transfer. My shop has been doing well but I need to add a variety of goods in order to satisfy my customer needs. I also wanted to attract new ones by bringing items that were not in the market at that particular time. Apart from that I also paid school fees for my children. School fees have always been my biggest worry. Paying all the fee arrears at ones makes me feel relieved. I can now concentrate on other projects knowing that the biggest expense that would at times deprive me enough sleep had already been catered for."