Jikite

Those who work in the care, service, and domestic sectors are un/under paid, sometimes abused/manipulated, and oftentimes working under the worst conditions.  When work is available, workers do not know their rights or responsibilities, and there is no respect to the work that they do. Similarly, employers of domestic and care workers do not provide contracts, or understand their responsibilities.

Types of jobs in the care, service, and domestic economy include household managers, cleaners, nannies, drivers, guards, gardeners, home nurses, waiters/waitresses, shop/kiosk attendants (who are not the owners themselves), and many others that we entrust with the most precious parts of our lives, and yet give the least respect to.

Employment of care, service, and domestic workers touches on a very niche category of individuals that are often forgotten.  They are virtually 'invisible’ in many ways, but yet almost every working person employs at least one of these individuals in their most sacred space(s), their home.  For government, many of these individuals are unbanked and untaxed, and they usually also do not have identification or a paper trail that speaks to their identities.  They are not in the informal economy, but they are also not part of the formal economy; hidden from the mainstream.  Lower education and (digital) literacy levels also means that these individuals are unable or unwilling to speak up, for fear of not having understood the issues and therefore mis-presenting themselves.

Of the total working-age population, 5 per cent are employed as domestic workers, according to the ILO. Yet, this figure is likely underestimated and closer to 7 per cent due to, among other factors, the employment of children under the age of 15, the prevalence of informal arrangements, and the reluctance of domestic workers to self-identify as such given the prevalence of social stigmatization (ILO, 2016). 

Research conducted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 2016 found that 75 per cent of people performing domestic tasks in Tanzania are women; 68 per cent work in districts outside their place of origin; and 78 per cent of female domestic workers are between 15 and 24 years old.  (ILO, 2016).  This was reflective of only domestic work such as nannies, housekeepers, and cooks, and does not take into account the myriad of other domestic, care, and service jobs.  

In 2016, the ILO estimated that there were roughly 5.2 million domestic workers in Africa. This not taking into account other jobs in the care and service sectors. In a recent study done by Women in Information Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), it was found that “[a]lthough national legislation sets a maximum of 6 working days per week, 25 per cent of surveyed workers worked 7 days”

JIKITE is an online platform that aims to put control (back) in the hands of the domestic, care and service workers.  The aim is to bring access and agency to the fore of the care economy, which employs millions of men and women across Africa. A huge emphasis is also placed on rights, respect, and recognition for those who provide millions of individuals and families with the support they need to be able to be economically active.

At present, many in the care, service, and domestic sectors in Africa rely on word of mouth to find jobs; disempowering these workers. Jikite aims at putting the initiative in the hands of the service providers, so they are not reliant on past employers providing job leads.  The platform provides an opportunity for those with low(er) digital literacy levels to build a profile, define and appreciate their skillset, create a work history record (or a CV), build some form of traceability, and to begin to work under better conditions.  

There are not enough jobs, and there are too many individuals with low education and literacy levels.  At the same time, mobile penetration is growing across the Global South.  With greater agency, and with increasing time spent on mobile phones, this is an opportunity for people to spend that time for their own good.  Nothing is more important than having the means to feed oneself and one's family, and to attend to basic needs.   At the same time, with the African Union (AU) plans for free movement of persons, abolition of visas, and free right of residence, this creates great opportunity for Jikite to scale across the continent.

In the short term, it is finding work.  In the medium term, it is gaining access to payment, savings, insurance and other schemes.  There is also the development of one's work history, something that many in the informal economy do not have, and reference checks are difficult.  In the long term we are looking at greater agency and control over one's life.  The understanding of rights, opportunities, and responsibilities is something that JIKITE aims to achieve in the longer term, and formalizing this sector that goes largely unnoticed and unregulated. 

Jikite serves millions across Africa with low education, low income, low literacy, and low digital literacy levels, who work in the care, service, and domestic sectors. They are part of the millions on the continent who deal with the most personal aspects of our lives, but receive the least respect in many cases.

“Domestic workers do both direct and indirect care in or for households. Therefore, they are part of the care workforce and global an essential part - The 70 million domestic workers over the age of 15 (ILO’s figure) make up around 23% of the global care workforce (which number 308.6 million).” 

The platform has an automatic alert system for minors looking to secure work, as we know that hiring of minors is a pervasive problem in this line of work. The platform allows them to register to a point, but then will reach out to the minor and identify

The idea for Jikite came to me when I became a mother in 2020 and joined a WhatsApp community of 250 mothers, who at different times all struggled with the same challenge: Finding household staff (nannies, cooks, cleaners, guards, gardeners, nurses); verifying identities of their staff; reviewing documented credentials of their staff; speaking to people who valued and recognized their contribution to society as care workers. Some are expatriates who will ask for contract templates that their staff can understand (in Kiswahili), or trying to understand what forms of identification most people have, or other basic questions that 

I then connected with a team of developers in Tanzania and Kenya who "get it". They understood where I was coming from, and we brainstormed about additional professions to add.  Finally, once the platform was ready for testing, two young field testers were engaged - one studying engineering and the other with a degree in accountancy - both are tech-savvy, able to speak English and Kiswahili, and both the children of domestic workers. Not only did they have a community of the target population surrounding them, they understood the value of these jobs being respected as they were the fruit of parents from these sectors.  They were immediately sold.  As they field test, they feed back to the developers and I on the challenges they face when helping people register (the first 50 care workers), enabling us to quickly tweak where needed.

On the other side is a potential community of 'clients' in the form of the 250 mothers in the WhatsApp group, and many others, who could use a solution that takes an other 'manual' process and makes it digital, quick, and with records.

The design of the solution has to take into account two sides: potentially very low literacy (and digital literacy) levels of the care workers, and different capabilities of their phones and ability to comprehend what is 'intuitive' to those who regularly and comfortably use smartphones. The second side is that of the employers, whose needs, literacy levels, and responsibilities are very different. Understanding these two sides, as a parents/potential employer myself, and that of the care workers (through speaking a lot with my own team at home), helps to bring these two worlds together in the Jikite platform.

Ideas are easy. It is navigating the nuances of legal, technical, and growth plans that is tricky, and this is where Jikite will need the most help.  We are entering unchartered waters as many solutions in Africa focus on fintech. This is not that. Through engaging with a community of experienced and also like-minded individuals, especially others who are working on the Care Economy, will be an invaluable resource.  

At present recruitment and placement within the care economy in Africa is a very manual process, dependent on word of mouth. There is no agency on the part of care, domestic, and service workers.  Jikite aims to bring the control back into the hands of the workers themselves, and expose them to, and protect them under a platform that puts their rights, responsibilities, and protection first.

Through the use of technology, there is the ability to scale very quickly, as more people get on the platform.  Each and every household across Africa has some form of care worker, and we want to ensure that these people are all captured, cared for, and recognized within the greater economy.

Our goal is simple, and twofold.

1. Growth. We want to see Jikite become a household name across markets in Africa.

2. Dignity. We want domestic, care, and service work to be valued, respected, and dignified work.

The former is quantifiable.  The latter is very nuanced, based on perception, but we will know it when this type of work has achieved the respect that it deserves.  We hope that through spaces such as MIT Solve we can connect with individuals and institutions that can help us think through and achieve these two simple goals that will take us into the next year (our first real year of operation) and the next five years and beyond.

Progress for Jikite is more than just the number of people registered on the platform. It the number of active users, it is how many are able to secure work or find employees, and it is seeing how the platform can serve the most marginalized.

1. Under decent work (SDG 8), we aim to track that no one is paid below minimum wage, at the very least.  Under indicator 8.5, we aim for decent work for all men and women, specifically those working in the care, domestic, and service economies. Under target 8.7 - the inbuilt mechanism to identify minors looking for work enables us to intervene and identify alternatives for these young people. Target 8.8 will become even more pertinent to our work as the African Union (AU) realizes its vision of freedom of movement of people across borders, opening up new markets for domestic and care workers on the continent.

If those working in the care, domestic, and service economy are given a platform that respects their professions and gives workers greater agency and access, their jobs will be better viewed (by themselves and by others around them). This in turn creates opportunity for workers to speak up when their rights are not being respected, forcing/encouraging employers to respect their roles in providing decent work at decent rates, under decent conditions, and with dignity.  As this is a sector that employs many people (younger and older), but usually ones with lower levels of education, it is an opportunity for growth, progress, and recognition of this work. Later, it provides a way in which governments can protect these individuals who are currently exposed to significant risk (occupational, social, financial, and otherwise).

Jikite uses very simple technology, leveraging on the ubiquity of Meta's products which have introduced millions across the world to the use of mobile phones, social media, and technology.  We want to piggyback on that user-friendly design with a product that is just as easy to use, for good.  Jikite is quite simply put an app; for now.  We recognize the potential for incorporating many other types of technology and integrations in the future, but for now we are focused on the very 'basic' technology of an app, and use of SMS (especially for those with no smartphone).

Not actively considered at present as the leadership team is still only Aisha.

We know that generating revenue will be important, and we will focus on this later. For now, the emphasis is on the platform, its usability, and its usefulness.

Not applicable as we are yet to start charging for the platform.