THE wonderful world of YouTube lies ahead for a Lake Meran school girl.
It is one aspect of modern technology often denied Kerang South Primary School student, Emily English when she is at home on her parents’ farm.
The 10-year-old became the face of a campaign for improved mobile phone coverage in the Lake Meran and Meering West districts.
She wrote to the Federal Member for Mallee, Andrew Broad to describe the problems she had completing her homework because of poor internet.
Her pleas for improved services were answered last week when Mr Broad announced an Optus tower would be built at Lake Meran under round two of the Federal Government’s Mobile Black Spot Program.
Better services will open up a whole new world for Emily.
“I will probably go on YouTube and learn how to do things like crochet,” she said.
Emily said she hoped the tower would be built soon.
“Mum told me we would get a tower at Lake Meran, but we don’t know where and we don’t know when,” she said.
Emily said internet at home was “dodgy”, so she often took a screenshot of internet pages in her iPad while at school so she could access them at home.
“Sometimes we can’t get any internet at home so we take photos and bookmark pages and sometimes we go to grandma’s in Kerang to use the internet,” she said.
Emily said communicating was also a problem for her dad on the farm, especially during busy times like harvest.
“Sometimes dad tells mum a message and she passes it on,”she said.
“Dad has a CB radio in the header, but it’s a bit croaky.”
The remarkably mature Grade 4 student said the lack of mobile phone coverage was also a safety hazard for farmers and holiday-makers at Lake Meran.
“A lot of people visit the lake and they think they can use their mobile phones but they can’t,” she said.
