For the over 5,000 frontline healthcare workers who have been receiving free data bundles from Safaricom to assist them as they fight the COVID-19 pandemic, the gradual return to normalcy, albeit under uncertain conditions, doesn’t mean an end to that.
Safaricom has today announced that it has extended the support it has been providing to them since April 2020.
When it was announced, the initiative, which was part of several from the telecommunications company, was set to last for 3 months, which have since elapsed.
“The initiative will see an equivalent of 195 Terabytes of data, 10 million voice call minutes and 33 million SMSs allocated to 5,529 frontline health workers as identified by the Ministry of Health. Each health worker is set to continue receiving a monthly bundle consisting of 12GB data, 600 minutes and 2,000 SMSs for an additional three months,” a statement from Safaricom reads.
Joining Safaricom in extending the gesture of goodwill to the frontline healthcare workers is Samsung Electronics East Africa which has donated 500 Samsung Galaxy A2 Core smartphones, worth Kshs 3.8 million “towards improving communication and to monitor and aid the movement of testing and care teams.”
Recently, Safaricom also announced the extension of its support for digital learning programmes offered by its partners such as Eneza Education, Longhorn Publishers and others with the provision of education-specific free data bundles and a waiver of subscription fees for services like SMS shortcodes. The extension is set to benefit about 2 million learners across the country.
