Victoria is known for its vast number of charities. Camosun College is no stranger to them; Africa Calling, for example, has had a strong presence here on campus for the past seven years (indeed, the group started as a class project at Camosun).
Africa Calling collects phones and distributes them to those less fortunate, but they’re having a hard time doing that these days.
Phone donations have been dwindling, and Africa Calling member and former Camosun student Kevin Davis is worried about the older phones being pushed out of the market.
“The CDMA-type phones will soon be obsolete,” says Davis. “We are basically down to one iPhone, which I just received from somebody at Camosun. Our stocks are basically depleted.”
Camosun College sociology professor Francis Adu-Febiri is a co-founder of Africa Calling; he agrees with Davis that they aren’t receiving as many phones as when they first started. He says it’s because of changes in technology.
“When we started, smartphones were new and people didn’t want flip phones,” he says. “Now more people have smartphones and they keep them longer.”
The donation boxes for Africa Calling have also been an issue lately. Boxes have gone missing all across Lansdowne campus, with the only remaining one being in the cafeteria.
“I don’t know what’s going on there,” says Davis. “People have been taking them away, which is a little disturbing.”
One of the things people might not realize when they see the group’s name is that it isn’t just localized to Africa—they’ve sent phones all over the world, as far as the Philippines and as close as right here in our own city. Davis thinks that more people should be aware that the group helps out everywhere, not just in Africa.
“We do help locally,” says Davis. “A large part of what we do is giving the phones to people right here in Victoria. It’s not just abroad; we are also focused locally.”
Africa Calling operates with no budget whatsoever, but Davis says they’ve managed without.
“I’ve never collected a dollar from anyone, nor do I plan to,” he says. “If this is going to work, it’s going to work because of something called ubuntu, which means ‘people are people because of other people.’ When I first started this, I realized that we were going to need money to do this, and we didn’t have money. So I thought, ‘Okay, well, people are going to have to donate their time or their resources.’ Seven years later, we’re still going, and we’ve managed to get phones all around the world.”
Despite the challenges they’re currently facing, Africa Calling means a lot to those involved. Davis says that being part of the group has changed his life.
“It’s done a lot for me personally,” he says. “When I started doing this and going to school, the combination and the feedback I got from people just gave me a whole new outlook on the world and people. It was unknown to me when I started, but I noticed this energy that grew and how people were just drawn to it. It was very inspiring for me. It’s pushed me to do more each day. And here we are. We’ve set up an international charity without a penny. It’s blown me away.”