"What I am striving to accomplish in the next year, is to find a location where I can set up my business in town, and with the new larger space, I can now focus on making clothes for both men and women. Working from home, I'm limited by space and location( since not all clients will find it convenient to come to my house for fittings etc.), hence a shop will work nicely, plus give me walk in business as well."

"My long term and short term goals are somewhat intertwined. I would love for my children to finish their education, with myself being able to fiance the same. While in the long run I pray that, that in turn means good jobs for them so they can take care of themselves, their families as well as myself in my old age."

"Within the next year or so, I would love to make my maize flour selling business bigger and get a physical shop to sell to customers at retail price. This would work towards my long term plan, which is to be able to take care of both my family and my grand kids and financial stability would greatly help me achieve this."

"My short term goal is to start a hotel at Gade, where I live. A nice, quaint, little hotel where I would make local delicacies such as chapati, mandazi, tea, beans etc, to cater to my local coastal market. I believe I could excel in this. In the long term, my plan would be to use this new revenue stream, as well as others I will get along the way, to ensure both my family, and myself, have a good and better life than we have had so far."

"Financial constraints is the greatest challenge currently. We are growing older and unable to work to earn a living. In order to get food, we depend on our children to buy for us and some times we are forced to sleep hungry. This makes me feel like a burden to them because they have children who depend on them. I hope one day I get money to buy livestock that I can sell to cater to the basic needs of my family without relying on other people."

"Having received the funds from GiveDirectly, I proceeded to buying mattresses for the family, seeing as new ones were needed, and also spent some of it on installing solar powered heating and lighting for the house. I have 4 kids and a husband, and while I am pursuing a tailoring course at Giriama academy, it was only prudent to spend some of the money on both theirs and my tuitions. My eldest is in Grade 5 at Kavunzoni Primary, my second and 3rd are in Grade 4 and 3, respectively, also at the same school. My youngest is 1 year old and was only a beneficiary of the groceries I bought in the house, though the others got their tuitions of KES. 1,000 each for the two eldest and KES. 600 for the third born, per term, thanks to GiveDIrectly."

"I was thrilled to hear that I had been chosen as one of the beneficiaries since it meant that my dream of building a new home would finally come true. My spouse and I are both elderly, and at the time, charcoal burning was our primary source of income. We can no longer dig the logs for burning charcoal because of our advanced age, thus we were unable to get anything from it. We are grateful that the monthly payments, which are now our only source of income, have arrived. Right now, I want to make our living situation better. We live in a small, grass-thatched house with deteriorated walls, so it is essentially the same as sleeping outside. We have so far bought ten iron sheets, and we still need to buy another 18 so that we may begin building a new house. By the end of the year, we hope to accomplish this"

"Given my advanced age, my son is my sole source of financial support. Since my son is the family's sole provider and earns a meager income, he occasionally finds it difficult to meet everyone's needs. This year, I want to purchase lots of goats. These goats will procreate, bringing me more money. As the number grows, I may decide to sell some and use the proceeds to provide for the needs of the family. This will help take some of the pressure off my son, who works extremely hard to put food on the table for the family every day."

"GiveDirectly did an excellent job, which we appreciate and are still pleased with after spending the funds. I appreciate the uncompromised spending that was not influenced by GiveDirectly. We were all very excited when we got the chance to enroll because we had been hearing about the testimonies from afar. Everyone appreciated and comprehended the entire procedure, and nothing should be changed even in other villages."