By Thia James

Donated cell phones help SaskTel provide local women a lifeline

Apr 14, 2013 | 11:54 AM

Local services that help abused women are extending them a lifeline with donated cell phones given to them by SaskTel.

The Crown corporation has collected more than 41,000 used cell phones donated by customers.  Phones in good working order are sent to one of about 19 women’s shelters in Saskatchewan. The ones that are unusable are sent to EDI Inc. in Ontario, which pays SaskTel for recycling those units.

The money from those units goes towards pre-paid phone cards donated to the shelters.

This is all thanks to a partnership between SaskTel and the Provincial Association of Transition Houses and Services of Saskatchewan (PATHS). The program was first launched in June 2009.

“It was a way of reducing e-waste to the landfill and contributing to environmental factors, but also to give back to a very worthwhile cause,” said Michelle Englot, director of external communications, corporate affairs for SaskTel. As a part of the program, SaskTel also provides pre-paid cards with the reusable phones.

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“People do upgrade quite frequently these days, and with that in mind, some of these phones are likely useable, so we did develop a partnership with PATHS.”

Englot said one woman has actually told her story about how one of these phones saved her life in a video posted on YouTube.

And the Prince Albert Safe Shelter for Women has received some of the phones. Sherry McNabb, the assistant director of the shelter said the last shipment they received contained about 10 or 12 phones.

“We’ve handed them all out,” she said. McNabb said the phones are given to women on an as-needed basis. “The majority of our clients do come in and they already have their own cell phone, so it’s a few … that need them.”

She said the purpose of giving the women the phones would be to give them the ability to call for help if needed.

Melfort’s North East Outreach and Support Services have also received a number of the phones. Currently, they have eight phones on hand in the office that are available to the women they help.

SaskTel contacts them every six months to see if any new units are needed, but if they do run out they can contact PATHS, which will make more phones available, executive director Louise Schweitzer said. “It’s never been that we’ve been out of phones,” she said.

She said anyone who has needed a phone has gotten one. “We activate the phones immediately and give it to them for safety and security reasons,” Schweitzer said.

In the last year, she estimates that North East Outreach and Support Services has handed out four or five phones.

“What the personal cell phone does is it gives them the … safety and security of knowing they always have a way to get help,” Schweitzer said. She said some women’s violent partners monitor their personal cell phones. “So, by having this one, or their personal cell phones get taken away, this one they know that they always have it. It’s a lifeline for them.”

Women receive the phones after staff visit with them, and they are provided a unit if they’re in a domestic violence situation, she said.

“A lot of the women that we do work with are rural and remote. So, it does give them the availability to call for assistance,” she said.

SaskTel’s Englot said the Crown corporation has had “really good feedback” from the transition houses.

“We just continue to promote the program and encourage people to recycle,” she said. SaskTel promotes the program at all of its stores. “It’s just something we’re trying to continue building awareness for.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames