[WSIS CS-Plenary] 'drilling down' into cell phone use

[Tracey Naughton]

On cell phones, to quote myself from current research into telecentre 
training:

• CELL PHONES
Cell phones as anywhere in South Africa are popular and the take up 
rate in the village is widespread, despite the fact that many areas 
have no reception. People often don’t have airtime, but make use of the 
‘please call me’ function when they pass through a reception area. This 
is not necessarily a request for the receiver to actually call – they 
too may not have airtime, but is a way of saying hello, sending a 
greeting.

Though many people in Kguatswane (a village in Limpopo Province, South 
Africa) can be described as functionally illiterate many are able to 
operate a cell phone and recognise the language of cell phones.

For literate people, cell phone language shows up in the computer 
training. For example instead of writing, ‘Let me tell you a story’, 
people write ‘Let me send you a message’.

The arrival of the cell phone in this community was described as the 
heralding of a new era. The area had been quite isolated during the 
Apartheid era and traditional life went on. The cell phone, which one 
only needed the ability to speak to use, and which had no wires, had 
the ripple on impact of awareness of a world outside the village area.

An example was given of an older women who had been given money by her 
father to provide for her grandsons. She was ready to purchase building 
materials for a home, and cows, in order to establish them in the 
village. The arrival of cell phones prompted her to consider other 
opportunities for the grandsons and she funded their educations, 
starting with the basic computer training at the Kguatswane Centre.



Tracey Naughton
NYAKA
Communication for Development Consultant
201 Somerset hall
239 Oxford Road
Illovo     2196
South Africa

landline & fax:	+27 (0) 11 880 5030
cell / mobile:	+27 (0) 82 821 1771
email:		tracey at traceynaughton.com
skype:		tracey_naughton
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