"I felt very happy"

"Iron sheets,bicycle,farming,livestock, and local running."

"Financial constraints is the biggest challenge. With old age, I am unable to fend for myself and hence rely on livestock keeping to earn a living. Currently, none of my two cows produces milk meaning I am forced to ask for money from my children. It makes me feel like a burden to them since they have their own families to look after."

"As a family grows, the needs such as shelter, food and finances also increase. For instance, since I got married 2 years ago, we have been living in a single grass-thatched house that doubles as the kitchen, bedroom and living room. With this, our privacy is compromised as we now have a 23-month-old boy who is learning by observation. I am saddened to have diverted all the finances towards my husband's education at the expense of our comfort and now we are struggling to raise finances to construct an additional house."

"Food insecurity is a major problem that we face at the moment, this has been further worsened by the high cost of living that has made the cost of food very difficult to afford. We have lived a life of anguish and destitution and it worries us a lot. We depend on maize as a stable food but since the outbreak of lethal maize necrosis disease, it has been difficult to put food on the table."

"Currently, we are wrestling with a sense of hopelessness and not enoughness. This is because the cost of living has shot up. Every effort we have employed is small and it worries us a lot more so raising and paying school fees for our two children who are in Itembe Secondary school. Last week was the school opening day and we have not been able to raise this term school fees leave alone clearing the pending arrears for last term. Day after day we are wondering where to raise the school fees for our children. We want the best for our kids to have a better life than ours. On the face of this we stare at the crushing sense of helplessness. That is what give us massive worries everyday and sleepless nights."

"We don't have a place to work in , we have a small land and to be able to get food to eat we have to rent from others and additionally we have to work for others to be able to gain some money to use. We currently don't have our own livestocks, to be able to get fertiliser we have to herd from others because we don't have any capacity to buy our own and we don't have money to buy inorganic fertiliser which is quite expensive. Our children are not able to get every materials they need because we can't afford it , for instance we have not paid for any of their school fees , they go to school every day fearing that they will be chased out and this is our main inconvenience."

"Challenges are many in my life. The challenge I feel is the most painful is the lack of food and school fees. We depend on the farms and since this place is dry we don't get much produce in the farms and therefore no food and money. We also have a challenge of theft. Our goats and sheep get stolen by our neighbouring communities."

"I am an under graduate who did an education degree. Graduated in the year 2021. Getting employment has been difficult because of the limited opportunities in our country. It's also hard getting any form of employment to support my family. It's very difficult getting funds to do farming. Farming does well here. Especially irrigation. Lack of employment has made it difficult for me to invest in farming. If we could have funds to do farming, it will help us develop. We could even expand our poultry farming."

"I have a family of 6. Three children are in school. One is medical school, just started last year. We normally pay $800 per year for school fees, before other expenses. Two other children are in secondary school. We are required to pay $500 per year for each child. One is joining form one this February and the other is in form four. It's really challenging for us raising school fees for all of them at once. This has made our life very difficult. It has affected us, since I cannot even develop some of my plots or expand the livestock we have. Most of our income is channeled towards educating our children."