"It has been a year now since I left my job of hairdressing. This was contributed by low payment because I was an employee and I was paid on a commission basis. In a good month, my income summed up to $50, an amount that could not meet my needs. By then, I was expecting and I could not find an alternative job which forced me to remain jobless at home. With the high economy, depending on my husband is a challenge. His motorcycle taxi job pays him very little usually $3 per day after paying the bike owner. This has left us with more stress and I find life has become so tough due to the lack of a reliable source of income."

"Making sure all six of my children received a quality education has been a struggle for me. Thank goodness, I was able to teach them all up to the secondary level. Sadly, they were unable to continue their education because of financial difficulties that arose after I lost my job as a result of COVID-19. As my wife, Fatuma, sells groceries to meet the family's basic needs, I turned to livestock keeping. I am saddened that I am unable to send my children to college, and as a result, they can only find temporary jobs that are unsustainable. Lack of funding to support my children's higher education is one of my current struggles."

"Raising 3 children who are in JSS and one at secondary School is an uphill task. I am a widower who relies on subsistence farming for a living. Crop production has failed due to little rainfall that we received this year in our area. Besides, food prices have gone up making it hard to afford feeding my family. I have turned to charcoal burning business but it does not help me address our needs. There are no big trees that one uses to produce the charcoal. It is time consuming and labor intensive. A bag sells at usd 4 and once you deduct the cost involved you are left with less than usd 2. I am supposed to pay usd 153 inorder to complete the fees for my son who is in form two. In a month, I get around usd 53 which is not enough for education and domestic expenses. Hence, lack of money is the main challenge that I am currently facing in my household."

"As a family of four, our main challenge is access to food due to food insecurity. Climate change has played a significant role in exacerbating this problem. Last year, we cultivated half an acre of land and managed to yield a bumper harvest of 8 sacks, each weighing 50kg, thanks to the El Niño rains from October to December. However, this year, the rains failed us, and we did not manage to harvest even a single bag of crops. Even the crops near River Rare were swept away. This has been a significant struggle for our family, and we are facing great hardship as a result."

"The lack of a proper house for my family is the biggest challenge I am facing because I cannot afford to rebuild or buy materials due to financial constraints. I rely on charcoal burning to provide for food and my two school-going children, but it only earns me KES 300, which is inadequate for our basic needs."

"The biggest challenge I am facing is financial constraints. I have been relying on charcoal burning and casual labor to meet my family's basic needs because I have been unable to find a more stable source of income. In my area, casual labor is scarce during the rainy season as flooding makes it difficult to work. Sometimes, we go an entire week without any work, which means my family often goes without food."

"I'm grateful for the opportunity GiveDirectly has provided me to improve my family's living conditions. Currently, my house has a roof made of polythene papers, but it has always been my dream to provide my family with a well-roofed house using good materials like iron sheets. My plan is to therefore improve the standards of my house, and to achieve this goal, I've been saving a portion of my transfers in our local merry-go-round group. Once I receive the pooled funds, I plan to use them to build a better roof for our home. Given the hunger challenge we're facing due to the lack of rain, which made our crops die and our farms not produce anything, I intend to allocate another portion of my transfers to address food insecurity. My plan is to use this money to buy food for my family until we are blessed with good harvests and have enough food to sustain ourselves. After completing the house renovation, I plan to redirect a portion of my transfers to buy goats. My hope is that they will multiply and increase in number and value over time. In the future, as I get older, I can sell these goats to provide for my family and have a reliable source of income, especially once the GiveDirectly program comes to an end. I am happy to see that my dream is becoming a reality, and I am thankful for this opportunity."

"I have three children, and one of them has already started elementary school. To provide for their needs, my husband and I depend on charcoal and crop production. We use the income from charcoal production to finance crop production. However, crop production is not reliable due to frequent climate shocks. For example, during the recent rains, we lost all our maize crops to floods. To have an alternative source of income and to ensure our kids don't lack school fees when they get to high school, we decided to spend all our first transfer on the purchase of three sheep, each costing $60, adding to the four we already had. We preferred sheep because they multiply easily and are easier to manage than goats. With this investment, we hope to sell the sheep in the coming years to address needs like school fees."

"Due to the persistent rains and recent floods that have ravaged the village, my grass-thatched house has become unsafe, as it is heavily affected by both the floods and rainwater. I cannot afford to build a more secure home for my family. With no steady source of income, I also struggle to provide enough food for the family because of financial constraints."

"Financial constraints is the greatest challenge. I depend on charcoal burning to make a living but due to rains and flooding it is not viable. As a result of loss of income, I strain to provide for my children and this saddens me."