A grandma struggles to buy a smartphone for her grandson so he can attend online school. Their story has gone viral, with many netizens saying they can easily relate as they also struggle to find ways to still send their kids to school amid the COVID-19 crisis.
As the world scrambles to avoid contracting COVID-19, a lot of people face many challenges. Foremost is the problem in getting enough food to feed the family.
But there are also plenty of other problems that families face, including how kids could still continue with their education through online school when they don’t even have enough money to buy food!
As school push for online education, a poor grandma in Rattanaburi, Thailand, went to a Vivo Smartphone shop at a local mall to find a smartphone that she can buy with 2,000 Baht ($63 or Php3,200). It’s the only money she could spare, but it was not enough to buy anything for the kid.
Photo credit: Jatupol Boriboon / Facebook
Vivo Smartphone shop assistant Jatupol Boriboon took pity on the old woman and her grandson, especially because the customer expressed worry that even if she could buy a smartphone, they would have to struggle in finding money to pay for monthly internet connection.
There are phones on bargain from internet service provides (ISP), but customers need to pay the monthly charge for the service. That’s something that this poor grandma could not afford. Yet she is also worried that her grandson will get left behind if they don’t find a way to send him to online school.
“Online learning is a great initiative but for kids who are from poor families, it is going to be very difficult. Most elementary school students do not have phones and now they have online classes which will burden quite a few parents,” the shop assistant wrote on his Facebook account.
Boriboon is unsure whether the old lady was able to buy a smartphone for her grandson that day, but he hopes the government can also do something about this major challenge that families have to face, aside from worrying about food amid this crisis…
