Dear Anisya friends,

A very Happy New Year to each and everyone of you!

Through your support, the Anisya website has served close to 3500 domestic workers and 1100 employers since launching in July last year. For these domestic workers, it represents an important shift away from having to pay transfer fees. Employers also benefit from gaining access to more workers and information before making a hiring decision. We see some repeat visitors to the website too, which is a good sign that the Anisya website provides something of value. We have done very little marketing on our own, so our continued member growth is through the word of mouth referrals that all of you have helped us with. Thank you for your support.

As they say, every silver lining has a cloud and we have faced our fair share of challenges.

Most businesses protect the interests of stakeholders. This typically means doing the minimum to meet legal requirements. Businesses that do not do this would be regarded as unscrupulous. On top of merely meeting requirements, Anisya aims to FURTHER the interests of her stakeholders.

In working towards this objective of furthering our stakeholders interest, we find ourselves in uncharted territory, and this sometimes leads to cases of abuse. Over the past year, we have experienced 3 cases of workers backing out of commitments with employers after the terms have been agreed and all relevant paperwork have been prepared. The most recent case was just only a week ago. As you can imagine, these cases are extremely frustrating for the new employer. We have received feedback that charging the 1-2 month transfer fee would ensure greater commitment from workers, but we’re not sure that’s the answer.

We really need your feedback from you – members of the Anisya community – on how we can address this situation of workers backing out of agreements. Please send us your thoughts through private message, commenting on this post, or emailing support@anisya.com.

There is a long road ahead of us in achieving our objectives and with your help, we can all make this community better. We look forward to working closely with you on this in 2014!

The Anisya Team
Grace, Jacqueline & Kevin