A LETTER FROM OUR CEO
We are incredibly grateful, proud and motivated to have reached 1 million work opportunities on the SweepSouth platform. It’s a milestone I don’t think we could have fathomed when we launched SweepSouth out of our home in 2014, and wondered what it would feel like to get to over 100 bookings a month, let alone getting to the 50,000 monthly bookings milestone that we recently hit. Now servicing tens of thousands of customers and homes on a monthly basis, we reflect often on what this means.
Our original idea for SweepSouth came from a frustrating experience we had in trying to find someone to help us at home, and from wanting to build a convenient way to book home services online. However, very quickly, it became just as important to us to build a platform for domestic workers and other home service providers in South Africa and beyond to find access to decent, dignified and meaningful work opportunities. Our belief is that all work can and should have dignity, and we simultaneously recognize the importance and impact of having a job and income to take care of your family, both in pre-Covid South Africa, but even more so today.
Our platform has serviced hundreds of thousands of homes and helped 20,000 women find work, with an estimated 90,000 dependents being positively impacted, not to mention the positive impact on extended family and local businesses and communities. We’ve also partnered with others to try to help address financial inclusion, give professional support to those impacted by GBV, provide free further education, skills and learning opportunities, and to help give food and financial security for all those who work via the platform, especially in the midst of the pandemic. In a time when we all need to feel hopeful, our past accomplishments and the caring shown around the country, have kept us so encouraged.
In this vein, we sincerely thank all of you, the ever-supportive community who’ve used our platform, welcomed service providers into your homes, supported SweepStars during lockdown, given us feedback, advocated for us, spread news of our work, and helped to champion our cause.
As we think about the next 1 million, we also think about the SweepSouth of the next few years, which will provide a wide variety of home services and products, operate across the continent, and continue to be a global inspiration for the way technology can positively impact lives. We’re just getting started, watch us grow!
