"The biggest hardship I have faced in my life is pursuing my dreams in education.Due to lack of school fees I did not perform well because I was in and out of school.At one time I was forced to stay at home for one whole term due to lack of school fees.My dream after completing secondary school was to go to university to study education.I did not make the cut off marks and was therefore forced to settle for a diploma course in Civil engineering which I started one year ago.This is two years after completing my education.I had to do casual jobs to raise my school fees since my parents cannot support me.I now have a young family at 21 years old and still going on with my education.It is really tough."

"The biggest hardship i currently face in my old age is being athritic, a disease that has made my health to deteriorate hence making me unproductive to an extend that i fully depend on my children for upkeep"

"Receiving this money will enable me venture into livestock keeping since at my age, i no longer have strength to work in the farm. I will therefore use the money to buy one dairy cow for milking and some goats and sheep for rearing in my farm."

"My community is located in an ASAL area from which during drought suffers a fair share of adversities. Livestock is the major backbone of the economy and livelihood of our people. When drought strikes, we are forced to walk for miles to look for pasture and water for their survival. Some of them succumb to starvation and drained energy along the way. During such times, milk production rapidly plummets leading to malnutrition and children dropping out of school thanks to lack of source of income. Life is totally disrupted during this season. This is the biggest hardship I've faced in my life. "

"After toiling to take my daughter through college, she has not made it to the list of graduation thanks to pending arrears in the institution. My plan is to spend the first transfer in clearing the bill to enable her pick her certificates for employment opportunities. I am going to invest the remaining amount in livestock for it is a store of wealth and source of income that will pardon me from repeat of such predicaments with the rest of my children in future. I am so grateful to GiveDirectly for coming in on time to tip the scales. "

"Being a house wife, I majorly depend on my husband who is vending water at Mombasa. His job is very tiresome but he is forced to do it in order to provide for the family's basic needs. Most of the time, my children are sent out of school due to lack of fee and in other cases, we skip our meals. Therefore, I consider lack of a reliable source of income as my biggest hardship."

"I do not have a new goal at the moment. I am still in the process of boosting my business. Once it has become stable and fully established, this is when I can think of pursuing another goal. For now, I feel that I might lose the business which I already started and waste the transfers If I start fumbling and opening businesses anyhow."

"My greatest happiness was to see my children go back to school and continue with their education and achieve their lives' goals. I used to toil day and night to try and raise their school fees, however, the little I was getting could not fully cater for all their school fees, that is until Give Directly came for my aid. Once I received the transfer, I paid and cleared the school fees for all my three children, which amounted to KES 30000. The biggest difference in my life, therefore, is the peace that comes with knowing that my children can comfortably concentrate on their studies without the fear of being sent home again for school fees."

"Currently, my life is different from how it was because I am not stressed about how to pay school. I am at peace. I have been washing people's clothes to pay school fees for my daughter and to also take care of other household needs. My wages have never been enough to cater for my needs. Now that my husband got an accident, I have been taking most of the responsibilities but I am glad that I managed to take care of my daughter's school fees on time and now it is not a bother. Of late she has not been sent home unlike before where she could be sent home for a week due to school fees arrears."

"I used a larger portion of my transfer to buy a motorcycle. I had saved some money amounting to 20000KES which I decided to top to with the recent transfer in order to accomplish this project. At least I am assured of 500KES every day from the motorcycle business. I used to depend on money from garbage collection and cleaning in our neighborhood which was tiresome and hectic at the same time. Although the new business has not picked up fully I believe it will soon stabilize and generate good profits. Currently, I am still doing my previous jobs. When I combine both sources, I find that I am able to take care of most of my bills easily unlike before."