The biggest concern when looking for construction-related services is getting trusted and reliable fundis or service providers. The trust is mainly in terms of getting qualified talents to deliver quality work and transparency on the cost implications. The good news is that Ajira Digital Program has partnered with digital platforms that offer transparency to the system.

This week, the Ajira Digital team joined Fundis, one of the Program’s digital platform partners in the Blue-collar sector, as they carried out the quarterly skills assessment of the onboarded talents from the Nairobi region. The exercise was taking place at the California Ajira Youth Empowerment Centre in Kamukunji NG-CDF Offices. Fundis is a mobile application platform enabling homes and businesses to digitally find and hire competent, vetted, and accredited professionals for their repairs, maintenance, large projects, and construction needs.

The Platform onboards different skills including plumbing, masonry, carpentry, glasswork, welding, tiling, painting, electricians, site supervisors, contractors or builders, and home caregivers. Once the talent has registered through the Fundis platform, they congregate all these skills and invite those that have a professional certification with basic required documents, to a skills assessment day. The assessment involves three main stages which include theoretical, practical, and soft skills assessment. Under theoretical skills assessment, the blue-collar actors are tested on basic knowledge such as a plumber who could be asked to explain the various tools used in plumbing. Then on the practical skills test, they are given actual duties where they gauge the quality and efficiency of work, knowledge of the application of different tools as well as the time taken to deliver a task. Thereafter they are assessed on their attitudes towards criticism and other soft skills important to facing the market.

The assessors involved in the exercise are mainly experts and specialists that have been in the industry for more than 10 years and are seasoned to give expert advice and tips. The assessors also form part of potential employers of these talents. The Assessment day is also an opportunity for the talents to network and share challenges and solutions in their different fields.

This is one way of demonstrating how digital platforms are transforming the informal sector as they help eliminate the high risk of inferior quality or incomplete projects and ensure qualified fundis for projects as required by the market. Such mainstreaming of the sector is very crucial especially to businesses as they are able to manage unforeseen cost implications resulting from unqualified and unreliable service providers.

Fundis has been carrying out this exercise every three months across all areas of its operations which include Nakuru, Eldoret, Mombasa and Coastal regions, Machakos, Nyeri, Nairobi, and its environs. They have so far managed to onboard and assess over 300 fundis from the 11 areas of services they offer of which 83 fundis have been earning a dignified wage and are on repeat jobs.
The platform has provided talent to different NGOs, Ajira Digital Centres, Start-ups, and SMEs as well as individuals. As an expansion plan for its business and as per market demands, Fundis also established a sister company, Chuuza, that offers other related services in the domestic and homecare categories. Chuuza connects customers to nannies, cleaners, beauticians, and other house management services.