Shram Setu

How can we make giving and receiving care accessible, affordable, and valued for all?

By staying true to our motto: formalizing the sector, normalizing the sector. 

With our solution, we aim to tackle the accessible and valued for all parts of the equation. There exists a need to provide domestic workers, a part of the care economy not recognized as a formal sector, with financial and job security, control over their workplace conditions ensuring safety, and access to benefits just like any other sector of labor. By initiating to formalize the sector, we aim to normalize the sector. Talking of domestic workers, we also hope to give a sense of security to the migrant workers which have experienced a heavy blow during the initial stages of lockdown in India.

Statistically, according to a report titled Making decent work a reality for domestic workers: Progress and prospects ten years after the adoption of the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189), published by the International Labor Organization on 15 June 2021, eight out of ten domestic workers are informally employed and thus lack effective labor and social protections. The same report states that at least 75.6 million people around the world perform this essential work in or for private households, 50 percent of which are employed in Asia and the Pacific. Official statistics place the numbers employed in India as 4.75 million, (of which 3 million are women) but this is considered a severe underestimation, and the true number is said to be between 20 million to 80 million workers. 

As an estimated 500,000 domestic workers work more than 40 hours for multiple employers in Delhi, scaling the problem at the base level with the national capital as the sample space and then working our way up, building trust, a loyal customer base, and hoping to gain partnerships on the way up will be efficient. 

Viewing the issue of domestic workers from the point of accessibility, our solution brings government schemes and more such opportunities not just to their doorstep but at the tips of their fingers. An otherwise unsure and oppressed sector can now have the empowerment to reach out or lodge a complaint without having to do rounds of police stations or government offices; we help bridge the gap by mediating through a few clicks on the application and working the complaint to the corresponding offices through our resources. Our 5 member team is also capable of conducting groundwork by connecting with those around us to tackle the most important aspect of the problem, awareness. 

A mobile application. A smartphone. A working network connection. A platform to take government schemes and present them in a simple format with necessary resources, notifying the user of schemes they are eligible for, all in the language of their choice. 

Our application asks the user to register and then fill in personal, financial, and employment details that help create an employment record and store the database which can later be made accessible to the Government as and when the Government tests the application's impact and reliability. This will create official records, initiating a road to making domestic workers eligible for other benefits enjoyed by employees from other sectors. We ask users to provide government-recognized ID proof and address proof. 

To assure privacy and prevention of misuse of their data, we will complete the legal formalities to gain government authentication. Understanding that it is a time-consuming process, we initially would provide the users with all that we have mentioned with basic details such as name, gender, annual income to filter schemes. 

In the long run, we also envision the implementation of smart contracts to enable online applications for government loans or subsidies through our application, once government invests its trust in us. The government can then use our platform to launch schemes centered around domestic workers, strengthening the foundation basis of our model. 

We serve the minimum wage earners, the domestic workers. 

Currently, they do not enjoy the same benefits as other workers from other sectors. They are not the target receivers for a majority of schemes organized by the government. Being ignored or undermined is the greatest form of being underserved. 

Through our solution, we address the information gap, bringing their plight to light. Our solution is not just limited to the technology we use but also includes on-ground work such as local surveys to enquire about their needs and mapping the ecosystem at our end. Addressing their needs also involves giving them the space to explore their rights and have the freedom to report a complaint without worrying about the loss of their job. We also provide help along the bridge in the form of guides, customer support, and connecting the user with local non-profit organizations working with these workers and/or government helplines. 

As members of middle-class families, we witness the struggles of domestic workers from a young age. Besides being empathetic individuals, we are also 21st-century leaders that are, in our own accord, a part of an organization called the Dexterity School of Leadership and Entrepreneurship. We have learned to find the missing piece in the big picture and rack our brains to serve the underserved. 

By identifying preexisting organizations working in the sector and the problems that the community faces, through communication, we have formulated an understanding of the needs of our target audience. Moreover, conducting surveys at grand scales is not the only way we analyze problems; we analyze existing data and news headlines concerning the marginalized. 

We are yet to engage persons of the community on a larger scale and indulge in groundwork, by understanding their perspectives. 

With close to zero initial input, we work through our ideas and hope to gather user input through reviews on the application in the long run. This will help us research, improve and execute advanced versions of our current model. 

Since we are new to this space, we are eagerly looking forward to the opportunity of getting exposure to other like-minded social entrepreneurs and change-makers, learning from them, and exchanging ideas with them.

On a more organizational basis, we are aiming to have Solve’s technical assistance in setting up and running the blockchain technology for maintaining our data records. For the future, once we scale up from the sample space, we would also hope to take advice from the Solve mentors on carrying out research and development on the ground while catering to such a huge population target and their needs.

Formalizing an informal sector and using existing models to inspire our project towards enabling domestic workers to become a part of a smart India is our approach to innovation.

Besides our initial business-to-consumer service, our solution provides service to business-to-government and business-to-business firms. This model provides a unique and innovative approach to scale up faster. Our organization is aimed at making the lives of domestic workers easier by providing a guided direct user interface and constant support from the technical team. 

We expect our solution to enable broader positive impacts from others by uniting several organizations working in the same domain. We aim at building a diverse and inclusive organization. This will be achieved by establishing a network across the operational region to continuously update us with data and inputs that can be used to strengthen our case to achieve government partnership. 

Our goal for the next year is to read the audience. With a year's worth of data, we will be in a position to analyze data and trends. Using statistics that are published each year regarding the impact and effectiveness of schemes, we can compare our project's impact by comparing pre-app and post-app involvement of domestic workers. For this, we will match up to our scale the data of our research with the data of governmental annual reports such as the SDG and ILO annual reports, etc. 

Our goal for the first five years is the continuation of the above-established goals; to research, improve, execute and scale. Initially, though our sample space is small and confined to just a city, we aim towards strengthening the system and reaching out to every part of the city so that no domestic worker is left untouched by our initiative. Furthermore, we look forward to staying true to our mission at whatever scale we work in the future, be it the state level, national level, or international level. 

We will be in a constant state of finding alternatives to government funding to keep us financially stable, keeping the service more or less free for our target users.

Since we do not serve anyone and do not have the system running, there is no set standard to measure our progress. However, we are in a constant loop of figuring out what's working, what's not working, and what can be done better. To learn about our progress, we will use customer feedback, regional recognition, and most importantly, government authentication as indicators of our progress. Given that we aim towards a government partnership, we will be under check constantly to ensure zero corruption or violation. Here, through technical assistance, we aim towards keeping the system running and transparent not just for public preview but also for internal assessment.  

In simple terms, our solution will impact the care economy at large by including the domestic workforce in government schemes, establishing rights that offer them protection, safety, and workplace dignity. With women forming the majority of this workforce, this is our step towards reducing workplace harassment against women that often goes unreported due to the fear of expulsion from their workplaces, besides other societal factors. 

For a common individual in India that sweats for a good part of the day in order to earn for their family, the assurance is what they need. We are not just an application; our goal is to communicate that safety and assurance are available at the tip of their fingers when required, in whichever language they are comfortable with. 

We do not aim toward creating new schemes; that is not our domain. We aim to stabilize the shaky structure and confidence of these workers. Through the right channels of communication and awareness, our application will work. We invest the future of our organization and project in those within whom we invest the safety of our homes. 

The core technology that powers our solution is blockchain. Blockchain is a recent technology where a chain of blocks stores information. It is immutable thus minimizing corruption in the system. Currently, the models of blockchain technology are being used in Ethopia for dealing with poverty and in Finland for dealing with the increased number of refugees. Taking inspiration from these examples, we are using it to store necessary data of the applicant and the employment history to validate the user's identity, helping the government keep a record. This technology will also enable us to store data for the schemes available on our application.

Every member working on our solution belongs to a diverse background. Our team consists of members aged 13 to 19 years. We include team members that identify as male and female. All of us are part of an organization that uplifts us to the same set standards without excuses. We set standards to meet them and help others in achieving the same. 

Each member entrusts the other the responsibility to complete their respective research to collaborate on all the pieces and create a working big picture. We aim to further diversify our solution by collaborating with different organizations from different regions, with different models/projects.

As far as the user base is considered, we do not differentiate on the basis of gender, caste, creed. We will, however, provide them with the opportunities to uplift them to gain equal footing in the society.

For the initial funding, 

- we're looking to work as a bootstrap organization with investment from personal sources.

For the revenue model,

- we aim to generate revenue through government sources. There are two main sources of revenue- government contracts and service fees. 

- We are also aiming to generate revenue through a paid partnership with the app, inviting organizations or governments working with domestic workers, in order to act as mediators to provide a platform for them and their services. 

To get money running in the system, we aim towards:

- raising initial funding through personal sources. 

- In the long run, we aim to secure long-term government service contracts and generate stable revenue. 

- If our work has sought the trust of renowned resources, then we will be applying for grants as well. Similarly, we will also be on the lookout for other initiatives such as the esteemed MIT Solve, to fund our project. 

Based on the customer base the app garners, we aim to navigate a different source of revenue so we are not entirely dependent on government funds, like paid partnerships with other organization. With more advancements, we seek to gain more resources of funding. 

With the system not in the run as of now, we have no plans that have been successful thus far in achieving financial stability.