When the country went into Covid-19 lockdown, *Bevan found himself locked out of e-learning. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to school and I couldn’t receive the online delivery the school was distributing because I don’t have the internet,” says Bevan. “Imagine that – an IT student who doesn’t have the internet.”
Bevan says Lorraine fought long and hard to get him connected to the internet but there were obstacles. The solution in the end – fortnightly grocery vouchers.
“Lorraine asked me to contact an internet service provider (ISP), create an account, and have them send her the bill. But ISPs aren’t set-up to work that way. The work-around was, I changed my phone plan to one with unlimited data and turned my phone into a mobile hotspot to access the online delivery on my laptop.
“I would never have paid for this plan in the past, but because of the vouchers Lorraine was giving me, I wasn’t spending what I was at the supermarket. I was able to take that money and re-purpose it into my phone plan. That’s how I was able to circumnavigate the problem.”
Bevan says without Lorraine’s support he would be unintentionally throwing away his degree.
“I’m at level 6 of my degree, it finishes at level 7, and I’ve been going since level 2. It’s been a few years now. And even though school is officially back in action, my courses aren’t, so it’s probably going to be at least another month of this for me. But as it stands now, I have a chance at passing this course. Without Lorraine’s assistance, I’d have had no show.”
*Name changed for privacy.