"Being a single mother of five, it has been an uphill task fulfilling the needs of my family. The business i engage in is selling groceries in the market, and the profit i get daily has never been sufficient enough to cater for all the needs of my family since i struggle to get money for buying food and paying school fees for my three children, two in secondary school and one yet to join college. Financial instability is therefore the biggest hardship i face."

"Its been 7 years since i completed my college education but since then, i havent been successful in securing a job. This is the biggest hardship i face since i depend on my spouse who is a teacher and being a polygamous household considering that his first wife is also jobless, he strains in providing for the family. I would have wished to start up a business which could earn me some income but lack of capital has made this impossible."

"I spent part of my transfer to revive my business. I have been selling snacks sometime back and the business was not doing so well that it ended up collapsing. I had to look for casual jobs in order to sustain my family. The struggle was real because most of the time I could idle around because the jobs were unreliable and hard to find. The fall of my business was a big blow to me because it had been close to my heart for over six years. When I got the money and revived it, I felt very happy. So far, I have been able to cater for my daily needs which have made me feel proud as a responsible man. I also reduced school fees for my two children who had huge fee arrears. Apart from that, I also paid rent for four months which I had defaulted. I can only thank GiveDirectly because I was almost giving up and resorting to going back upcountry but my hope was restored back with these transfers."

"Livestock, especially sheep and goats play an important role in the welfare of most people in my community. My husband and I are planning to invest our transfer in purchasing 20 herds of sheep for keeping. Our ambition is that in the next one year they would have multiplied enough for sale to fetch us enough money to buy a bigger piece of land. This is what receiving this money mean to me. "

"I spent part of my transfer on starting up a business. I have started an Mpesa and a cosmetic shop. Previously, I was just a housewife who entirely depended on my husband to meet most of my family's needs. At times I could feel embarrassed asking him for money but I had no option since I had not gotten a job to sustain myself. Nowadays, I am self-employed and I do not feel like a burden to him anymore because I have been able to have my own income and lend a helping hand to my husband. It feels so good to do this as his wife."

"In the next six months, I expect to be living a better life in that I will have bought a cow hence will no longer be spending on milk like now. I expect to be saving some money for future financial needs and I expect to have leased a piece of land to help us expand my farming for better food production hence reducing expense in the future."

"In the next six months, I will have saved enough money to expand the domestic poultry keeping project because I foresee a recommendable market when it is on a large scale. When combining the wages I make from the casual jobs to the sales from this project it will be enough to sustain my family's need comfortably."

"I expect that in the next six months, I ought to have saved enough money that will facilitate the construction of my new decent house. When this plan has come to pass, I will no longer have to take my visitors to my mother's in-laws house and chat because my present house is small and cannot accommodate them."

"The moment I received the transfer I was overwhelmed with joy. I read the message in the morning. I normally switch off the phone to save on my batteries. I was so happy, out of joy I started smiling. My husband asked me why I was happy and told him that I had just received the transfer from GiveDirectly. Being that I had so many needs to attend to, I started planing as I prioritized which needs to take care of first."

"My new goal is to expand my wife's business. Currently, she sells sweets but I would like to add other snacks like popcorns in order to increase her income base. When this happens, I know that the income will increase and we will be able to take care of our goals easily as a family."