Why We Built It This Way
Layers Of Safety
This world puts somebody who needs a hand in touch with somebody nearby who can give one. Every screen here was drawn with that sentence in front of us, and each layer below answers it.
Ten of them, and each one holds on its own.
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01
The Right To Work Comes First
Everybody here is asked for their right to work in Australia before a business can put them on a shift, whatever kind of work it is. It is the law wherever the work happens, and a student visa carries conditions of its own.
Nobody reaches a business here without that question having been answered.
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02
A Real Card Comes First
A neighbour gives one dollar on a card in their own name before they can search, and long before they can write a word. One dollar is small enough to stand in nobody's way and large enough to require a bank, a name and an address that already agree with each other.
Everybody who reaches a young person here has already told the truth about who they are, to somebody who checks.
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03
Every Hour Here Is Paid
A rate is required on every piece of work put up, and the words trial, unpaid, experience, exposure and volunteer cannot be typed into one. Work with no rate on it cannot be posted here at all.
Somebody turning up knows what the hour is worth before they leave the house.
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04
A Nameplate, Rather Than A Face
Every young person here arrives inside the same beautiful frame, carrying their name and their own words. Photographs of young people stay where they belong, which is at home.
A neighbour chooses somebody by what they wrote and what they can do. And the same frame for everybody means the confident one and the quiet one arrive looking equal.
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05
A Street, Never A Number
A neighbour is shown a first name, a suburb and a street, and that is the whole of what is public. We hold the full address here, under lock, for one reason: where anything ever happens to a young person, somebody has to know exactly where to go. They are told so at the moment they type it, in the same words we are using now.
A door stays a door until a young person opens it themselves.
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06
Close By, Rather Than Findable
The map shows a neighbour who is near them. It is drawn from the street, so somebody can see that a young person is two streets away, and the house itself is never on it. We ask for the full address and we say so at the moment we ask. It is held in the back end, and it is shown on no page of this site to anybody.
A neighbour gets what they actually need, which is how far — and stops exactly there, at the edge of what they were owed.
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07
The First Word Is Written With Care
A neighbour is walked through a moment that helps them say what they need properly — the work, the day, the place, and a picture if it helps.
A young person can answer once and be right. And an adult who has to compose a real sentence to a real person behaves like one.
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08
Their Messages Belong To Them
A first word reaches the person it is for, and they answer for themselves. Every conversation belongs to them — to keep, to show anybody they choose, or to end.
The person running it decides who reads it.
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09
Everybody Stands Level
Young people here carry their own words and their own prices, in whatever order the page happens to hold them. A listing lifted for a month says so on its face.
A young person is met rather than measured, and a neighbour always knows why somebody is where they are.
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10
The Money Goes Straight To Them
A neighbour pays the young person directly, in whatever way the two of them agree. UNiiVERSE asks a young person for twelve dollars a month to be here, with the first month free,, and takes not a cent of what they earn.
A young person keeps every dollar of their own work, and holds their own price when somebody asks them to drop it.
And Here Is What We Ask Of You
Every layer above is real, and eight layers are still eight layers. A card tells us an adult is who they say they are, and it tells us little about who they are like. That part stays where it has always been, with the people who know a young person.
So meet somebody the first time with a parent nearby. Talk about the work, the hours and the money before a young person starts. And where anybody here gives you pause, write to us — a message about a person on this site reaches a human being the same day.
A young person’s first job should be the beginning of their working life, remembered warmly for the rest of it. That is the whole of what we are trying to build.