In a world striving to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, our project, MERIT, directly addresses the core targets of SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities). We are tackling the dual challenges of rampant underemployment and the systemic exploitation of workers, particularly among youth, women, and refugee populations.

Moving far beyond a traditional job board, our innovative platform is designed as a digital African market—a vibrant ecosystem that connects skilled individuals (“fancies”) directly with local opportunities and employers. It’s unique, free-to-use model dismantles the primary barrier to economic participation, ensuring that the most vulnerable are not left behind.

A key innovation is our individual skills page feature. Recognizing that a person is not defined by a single profession, we enable users to create dedicated pages for each of their formal or informal skills. This micro-entrepreneurship approach allows a teacher, for example, to also market their tailoring and graphic design skills separately, sharing direct links to monetize every skill within their community and vastly increasing their income potential.

However, providing a platform for connection is only half the solution. True economic empowerment requires justice. This is why we integrate a robust advocacy and protection pillar directly into the platform. We provide critical education on workers’ rights, wage negotiation, and contract literacy, empowering users to demand fair treatment. Furthermore, our secure, anonymous storytelling portal allows individuals to safely report rights violations, a vital tool for seeking redress and shining a light on workplace abuse. This holistic approach ensures that the work fostered through our platform is not just available, but also decent and equitable.

Our model fosters hyper-local economic resilience and community interdependence, debunking the myth of job scarcity by highlighting the vast, untapped opportunities within our own communities. We take no fees from transactions, ensuring our incentives are perfectly aligned with our mission: to create a future where local talent is recognized, valued, and rewarded fairly.

By merging immediate access to economic opportunities with the long-term structural change of rights advocacy, Our Online Community Local Job Market -MERIT empowers individuals to reclaim their potential, contributes to more inclusive local economies, and builds a foundation for a more just and equitable society. We are not just creating a marketplace; we are cultivating a movement where economic participation and fundamental human dignity are inextricably linked.