Covid19 and The Connectivity Divide
In the current climate that we find ourselves in, we see just how vulnerable our system truly is.
The nationwide lockdown – set by President Cyril Ramaphosa in an attempt to flatten the curve of those affected and infected by the COVID-19 pandemic – has left us to learn to adapt in many ways. One of those areas being communication.
It seems simple doesn’t it? On a normal non-lockdown day, co-workers would interact at the office, teachers and youth would engage with one another in classrooms at schools, friends would meet at malls and your daily random interaction with a stranger would happen as you pass them on the streets.We however no longer live in this “normal non-lockdown day”. The reality being that we can not simply go out as we used to, that travelling has been limited to essential workers – for whom we are enormously grateful for as they put themselves at risk to keep our country moving-, the reality that schools are closed, that most businesses are still either closed or are running because workers have the option to work remotely from home. So, what do we do?
We adapt. Use social media, take advantage of internet accessible communication platforms, make phone calls, and use video call applications. Sure, these are all excellent solutions to the problem, but what the people and institutions that suggest this fail to realise is that not everyone has the resources needed to do so.
South Africa is still a developing country made up of many different people from many different backgrounds; most of whom are working class people from low-income urban areas or rural areas so resources; so the ability to engage online are not always – if at all – available. When the lockdown began we saw the immediate reaction to migrate to the digital space. Which in essence makes sense, but how do those who need to work from home and have access to a communication device but not the money for airtime or data to keep in contact with their co-worker’s? How are school youth supposed to access the online digital classrooms without access to a laptop, a phone or even the internet
We often tend to forget in times of crisis that those who struggle the most in more than one way are the working class. In the current lockdown we see that for ourselves; households are less concerned with how they are going to communicate and more focused on feeding their families as on the list of priorities, buying data is not at the top. Yet it is expected that everyone just be able to migrate to a digital space, a good plan and a solution that would fix many issues but an unrealistic one.
A realistic plan would be to make more platforms zero rate accessible or to just drop data costs in general. This way workers would be able to work efficiently from home, some school and tertiary level youth would be able to access online resources and attend online classes.
The sad reality of all of this is that even if we make more platforms zero rated, or if we drop data costs, there are still thousands of people who would still not be able to benefit from this. Thousands of people who – even if they wanted to take advantage of the free access – would not be able to because of the lack of devices to work on.
There are thousands of children who would not be able to make use of this because in their informal settlement they may not have access to electricity let alone a device to attend the online classes or get the school work assigned. It’s a sad but honest truth that we as a society need to address and find ways to combat. More importantly, the government needs to take action, as these social issues go way further than just being able to communicate during a crisis.
Ways that we can push forward in this time is to: call on mobile network operators to urgently zero-rate the services of all public benefit organisations that provide digital content for early learning and education; sign the following petition and make posts on social media to raise awareness on this issue, to call on our government to begin the process of a Just Transition of resources (including energy ) and living standards, and to support small businesses, organisations and fundraisers that are doing all that they can in this time to support those in need.
We see now more clearly than ever before the flaws in our system, but we also see the resilience in communities as well as the social solidarity. So perhaps the question shouldn’t be, “what do we do?” but rather, how can I help and how long will it take for us to do what we know needs to be done.
