Indonesians collect old phones to help students get online

When a garbage collector came to Ghina Ghaliya’s house in the Indonesian capital and asked if she had an old mobile phone his children could use to access the internet, it sparked an idea for a broader campaign to help students stuck at home by the coronavirus.

“He said it does not matter if it is the ugly one, as long as his children can use it for learning from home,” said Ghaliya, a journalist at a national newspaper. “I thought there must be many people who need second hand mobile phones out there.”

Shortly after the pandemic hit Indonesia, Ghaliya and 11 other journalists in Jakarta organized a group to provide food and money to people in need.