Loskop community network with Project Isizwe
In Imbabzane, South Africa, Project Isizwe is connecting 30 schools to the internet through a self-sustaining community network.
Status: Not yet started
Country: South Africa
Partner: Project Isizwe
Impact goal: 15 000 people
About the project
Project Isizwe apply their learnings from Mpophomeni in Imbabzane, around the Loskop mountain, creating a wifi community network that can continually sustain internet access for learning to 30 schools. They will install internet access points to schools and broadcast this to homes. Resellers trained by Project Isizwe will sustain the internet. Through this project they want to prove that the school community network model works in a rural, low-income, and low-density environment.
Updates
In the first week of August, wifi was installed at the 6 schools in the area. During Project Isizwe's time in the area they did extensive onboarding at each of these schools, ensuring educators and learners have the skills to get and stay connected for learning. They also ran educator focussed training to empower the teachers to integrate online tools and applications into their daily classroom practise.
3 local, previously unemployed youth from the area have been employed into a 12-month learnership program that includes extensive technical training as well as a year of workplace-based experience to upskill them while serving the human resource needs of our project. They receive a stipend as part of the learnership, and have thus been able to improve their livelihoods.
As of now, Project Isizwe have installed WiFi at 47 homes in Loskop. They started in the area where the 3 learners live so that they are enabled with WiFi at home, and have the best chance of reselling WiFi to their neighbours for increased income. They are continuing by moving into the next geographical zone in the area.
About the partner
Project Isizwe was founded 2013 with a vision to provide equitable connectivity for 50 million African citizens through uncapped internet. The non-profit organization partners with internet service providers to enable impoverished African communities to equitable access the internet.
Visit their website here to learn more about them.