Allan van der Meulen, co-founder of ZLTO, sits to speak with SM Digital. [Picture: Ziyanda Bell]
Just behind the picturesque Table Mountain, one of the wonders of the world and the face of the Mother City, lies the treacherous, poverty-stricken, gang-infested Cape Flats. As much as it is home to more than one million hardworking Capetonians, it is also the battleground of the 130 gangs that have held the lives of many to ransom.
“I have the same story that everyone has,” begins 27-year-old Allan van der Meulen, co-founder of ZLTO. He is sitting down to speak to SM Digital as a young man who defied the odds to become a forefront change maker in his community.
Raised in the notorious Mitchell’s Plain area, van der Meulen’s options were limited. “Families are always trying to make ends meet, there’s not enough money, you have to deal with a lot of poverty. You’re not sure where your meals are coming from, but your parents seem to want to make things happen.”
It comes as no surprise, then, that many people he may have started school with did not make it to the end. Instead, an overwhelming number of them wound up on the streets, selling drugs or joining gangs to survive. It is the story of about 100 000 young Capetonians.
For a long time, he explains, it felt as though everything was “rigged” against him. There is reason to believe that – historically, the Cape Flats received poorer services than their compatriots just over the mountain, in places like Camps Bay and Sea Point.
Referring to the reasons as to why about a quarter of Capetonians are unemployed, van der Meulen says, “They either don’t have work experience, they don’t have skills or they don’t have money to find work. If you don’t tackle skills, experience and money at the same time, someone won’t get a job.”
It was in this environment that van der Meulen decided it was time to take action, rather than allow circumstances to dictate his direction. In 2016, aged 20, he co-founded ZLTO.
Impressively, it can best be described as a blockchain-powered platform that tracks positive behaviour. It offers a host of rewards, from transportation to airtime, which users can redeem across 3 000 stores for doing meaningful tasks.
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Van der Meulen is proud of what the platform can do.
“Here’s every hour of every day that all our volunteers have worked and this is what they’ve produced. You can see this nice timelapse of impact. Because everything is documented and verified using blockchain, they know he’s not talking nonsense. He actually did what he said he did.”
Not only does ZLTO encourage people to get out and about, cleaning their spaces and improving their communities, it also offers companies to invest in the communities with confidence.
“There’s a lot of corruption in society, but with ZLTO we can show you where every single Rand went, to whom it went to and what that person did to receive it. I just want full transparency in the impact space.”
Winston Churchill is known to have remarked, “If you’re going through hell, keep going”. Allan van der Meulen uses this as his greatest motivation to keep doing what he does best.
“We live in a society where people don’t expect you to do well. It’s like, ‘your family grew up poor so what’s going to happen to you? Your uncle’s a gangster so what’s going to happen to you?’ Everyday, you’re fighting for your position in life so why would you stop?” he asks.
For young South Africans who recently observed Youth Day but had little to celebrate, thanks to high unemployment and a perceived lack of opportunities, van der Meulen was eager to share a piece of his mind. “You need to take action,” he insists.
“For too long, people sit and wait for the government, wait for their family or wait for their parents. You have time. People brag more about how many episodes of a series they complete … But if you read books, that will get you to employment. It’s up to you and what you choose to do.”
