"My main aim right now is to be able to pay school fees for my children so that they concentrate on their studies rather than spending most of the time staying at home when they are sent away because of not paying their fees. I really want to give them the best education I can because I know that education is the best gift that I can give to them."

"I used part of the money to clear off some of the loans I had borrowed from my friends in our group when I was faced with financial difficulties a while back. I had planned to travel upcountry for the holidays and the money came in handy in terms of transport and shopping for food items and gifts for my relatives. I gave some of the money as tithe to thank God for taking away from me the shame of unpaid debts."

"Biggest difference that the money has brought in my life is that I have been able to make tremendous adjustments and improvements on y house that I was never able to achieve in the past due to the heavy financial burden I have right now. Paying school fees for my children normally consumes more than thirty percent of my money, which leaves me with less amount of money to spend on other financial needs."

"I was so happy when I got the cash. I showed my sister the text and she was equally happy like the way I was. I told her that I would offset the fee arrears instantly and she felt so jubilated."

"Even though GD had promised to send us money in November, I was still sceptical about the promise they had made because some other organizations had promised us such kind of help before but never delivered. When I saw the message, it was really hard to believe and I had to call up some of my group members to confirm if they had received the same messages to be really sure."

"It was at around 6 am on the 6th of November, I was not yet awake but the buzz of my phone ringing with a new message got me up. I first got on my knees to thank God for the new day and did not bother to check the message immediately having assumed that it was the normal Safaricom messages. I carried on with my house chores as usual up to around 7:30 am when I decided to look into my phone. To my amusement, it an Mpesa indicating that I had received money from GD. I busted out in tears of joy for I knew that my long-awaited plan to build a home for my family is finally going to be accomplished."

"Taking back my mind to the moment we realized that the promise we were given by GiveDirectly came to pass always makes me shade some tears. It was the best day ever in my life, the shortest day which seemed to have ended on a half-day due to the great joy and internal celebration we had in our hearts. we decided to keep it to ourselves since at then we weren't sure whether other villagers had received. To keep ourselves out of their curiosity, we pretended as if we never received until we confirmed that it had happened to every other person whose door was marked during registration. That was the time when we came out celebrating. We saw the hopes and ideas we had been having coming to pass and the reason to really thank GiveDirectlty for delivering on their great promise."

"When I saw the two messages, I did not believe myself and I had to wake up my wife for her to confirm and she indeed told me that it was true. At that instant, I was filled with joy and I sang praises to the Almighty for the blessings He had given unto us. My wife also joined me in praising God for what He had done for us through GiveDirectly."

"Madam, she calls me, when you are poor, you do not sleep. You find yourself tossing in bed since you are always worried of the next day. When people pray that the rains come so that they can plant, you pray that it does not because your children will be rained on. On this day was just like the other days, I was not sleeping, I took my phone to have a look at nothing in particular, and saw the message. I woke my wife up to help me confirm that it was money. It was money!!, she said. I could not imagine myself having 55000 KES, my own money. I was super happy at the same time confused but when morning came, my first stop was at a hardware ready to pay for the building materials. I am still so happy about receiving this transfer. Thank you GiveDirectly."

"In the village we do not have access to electric power supply, this most of the time forces me to switch off my phone to save on the little-charged battery I have in the night when I do not expect so many calls. It was different on this day, I did not switch it off, I do not have a specific reason why, but on this night my phone was on. At 3.00 am, I heard a message tone ring, apparently, I also found myself awake too on this very night. I had to check, and that is when I noticed GiveDirectly had sent me money. The night seemed so long. I was so happy. I wanted morning to come so that I start spending the money."