Empowa says it is launching a community powered program called Zealy through which it will introduce a list of tasks that community members can complete and be rewarded.
Based on a blog post, Zealy is an educational venture with tasks said to typically centre around investing time in understanding the Empowa project better while users can also get rewards for ‘supporting us in spreading the word on Empowa.’
Empowa is a financial technology company utilizing on-chain payments and NFTs to enable funding for affordable housing through a lease-to-own model. The startup, founded in 2021 by Glen Jordan, aims to allow global access to investments in Africa’s emerging affordable housing market.
Its self-acclaimed climate-smart houses are currently offered to Mozambique’s low and middle-income earners with the company in plans to expand to other African countries, including Nigeria, according to Jordan.
“We have reduced the average age of the homeowner by 20 years; we’ve given people access to their own homes 20 years before they would have it normally,” Jordan said.
“As an opportunity, that is immeasurable. 50% of [the] homeowners are women-led households … it’s a huge thing around women’s empowerment and safety. To be able to provide safe environments for women-led households.”
The company raised $300,000 at launch through the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the funds were used to provide housing for 30 families in Beira, Mozambique. This achievement helped the company increase the home loan market in Mozambique by 5%, according to Jordan.
Talented and well known artists are tapped to sell NFTs with proceeds converted to its native $EMP tokens and used to purchase leases from its project partner, Casa Real, that manages sub-letting. Casa Real is a Mozambican construction company that provides affordable housing solutions to low and middle-income earners at a cost as low as $10,000 per unit.
In Zealy, community members will be able to acquire XP points which are earned by completing tasks.
“Different tasks carry different XP rewards which loosely reflect how valuable the task is for our project. Earned XP points will translate into eligibility to win prizes in adhoc competition we have planned throughout the year.
Our first competition will launch in the coming weeks and will award entries based on the number of XP points held. More details will be shared in due course. In the meantime, you can already begin collecting your XP points by completing the initial tasks outlined.”
The EMP token is built on the Cardano network.
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