Activity Description: Men on the Side of the Road (MSR) is giving thousands of unemployed men in South Africa the vital skills, tools, and social infrastructure to improve their lives. Extremely high unemployment rates in South Africa have forced men to stand on the side of the road, looking for temporary work and accepting low wages and abuse. MSR founder Charles Maisel saw the potential for these day laborers to recognize and utilize their own strength to create change from the bottom up.

MSR created an unemployment federation that organizes workers and helps negotiate temporary wages and employment conditions. They offer training programs in areas such as carpentry and gardening. This makes the men more readily employable and gives them the opportunity to start their own enterprise. MSR creates work opportunities through:

a. Application for Tenders
b. In-House Placement program
c. Government lobbying for 3% of all contracts to include men on the side of the road
d. Small enterprise development
e. Opportunities on the side of the road

MSR also reaches out to businesses and individuals to donate used tools through their innovative Tools Project. Men pick up the tools, creating increased awareness of the program and establishing personal ties to the community. They fix the tools and place them in a tools library where they can be used to establish a trade by those who could not otherwise afford them. To-date over 30,000 tools valued at over US$50,000 have been fixed and used. Ashoka’s Citizen Base Initiative lauded the effort as a powerful means of sustaining the organization through community support.