"I have a large family of 11 members and making them food secure has been my main challenge. I am a business lady selling vegetables at Kapkwen center only on market days. I earn $ 10 every week from the sale of vegetables and this is not enough to sustain my family for even 3 days. My husband is a heavy alcohol drinker and he hardly offers a helping hand making me the sole breadwinner."

"I worked as a shopkeeper at Langobaya village in Malindi for three years. Late December 2021 , the business was closed. The inflation affected the business thus the owner was running at a loss. Since then up to now I have not got any other job. I have a family of three members and we use 2kg of maize flour every day. It is now hard to get meal meals per day. So lack of job is the current challenge I am facing in life."

"I am currently unemployed and survival in this village is hard. To sustain myself, I ride for hire motorcycle. On a day the owner of the motorcycle gives me a target of $3. If I fail to meet the daily target, I accumulate a debt. It's stressful. Nowadays, it's difficult because a lot of young people depend on this. When I am lucky, I get only $2 a day. Mostly I get $1. This is just enough for food. This affects me because I cannot save quick enough to start goat rearing. It's also difficult buying new clothes."

"I am a single mother of 3 who depends on farming for a living. With the adverse climatic changes, farming is now uncertain as the yields are low. For instance, in May 2022, I sowed maize on my 0.5-acre of land but harvested only 4 bags of maize against the usual 9 bags on a good year. It pains me that I had to sell all of the bags to cater partly for the school fees for my son in grade 11. As of now, I have to attend casual jobs such as weeding and collecting firewood so that my family of 5 can have food for the day."

"We live in a semi-arid area, and it hardly rains which renders our farms unproductive. Even though we sometimes practice irrigation, the rivers are seasonal and can dry up with prolonged drought. Financial constraints are the biggest challenge since we depend on farming to earn a living for my family of seven."

"Give Directly is doing everything well and in a very unique manner . All my life I had never seen donors who give money unconditionally , neither had I expected that to happen to me . I was used to just receiving food donations . Thanks to Give Directly because it also gave us the freedom of spending the transfers . For people who were wise , this has changed their economic lives positively . I pray God to bless you and refill your pockets so that you can even return to help us again. I can't say Give Directly did anything wrong, you did everything perfectly right. This was unexpected and you out did yourself .There is nothing to improve on ."

"The biggest difference in my daily life is the glowing happiness in our family. We feel so much happy about what we have been able to do since we received money from GiveDirectly. Getting money to take our first born child to school is like a miracle to me. I could not imagine where we would get such money let alone sustaining him in school. GiveDirectly came in handy and helped us a lot by making it easy for us. The goats that we bought have also made it easy for us to plan ahead in terms of paying his school fees and meeting the need of our other children."

"Give Directly does everything well . You have helped people who didn't houses to build good houses . Parents have now taken their children , who had dropped out of school due to school fees , back to school . People in this village are now great business owners courtesy of the money they received from Give Directly . You have brought a lot of benefits into this village . There is completely nothing to improve on ."

"I sat for my K.C.S.E in 2014 . My goal next year is to go to college and pursue a certificate course in plumbing . I chose plumbing because I have a friend who is a plumber and he is doing so well in life that he inspires me . I need $400 to complete the course and I'm saving from my salary towards this good course ."

"I'm married but still the sole bread winner for my family since my husband has no job . When I received the second transfer , I gave $260 to my husband for him to process a passport and a apply for a job in the middle east . Although he is yet to travel , I'm glad that this transfer made the whole process easier . I have three children in primary school , I cleared their school fees for the whole year , this amounted to $50 . I paid $40 in a merry go round and I'm expecting to boost my business when my turn to receive comes . I also bought one bag of maize at $70 and I'm sure this will push us for a long while . Previously , I used to do charcoal business and it was so tiresome ! So I opened a grocery business using $26 ."