Telecommunications giant Vodacom has set up a R20-million disaster recovery fund to provide support to those hit by the fires and storms in the Western and Southern parts of the Cape.
Some R10-million has been made available immediately to sustain an emergency partnership with the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to rebuild or refurbish schools that have been affected, as well as the distribution of blankets, food and water.
In addition to the establishment of public cellphone charging stations and WiFi hotspots, including at the Knysna joint operations control (JOC) centre, some 1 200 starter packs Sim cards loaded with airtime have been distributed to disaster relief personnel in Knysna to enable better communication and emergency response.
This will be extended to include residents in affected areas.
“We have deployed about 40 phones with airtime to the necessary disaster task team leaders and 600 cellphone charger power banks have been distributed. We also provided 25 laptops, 30 tablets and data for the JOC to be used by volunteers on the humanitarian recovery team,” Vodacom concluded.