NEWS BRIEFS

Church Street Park temporarily closes beginning July 27

Church Street Park is scheduled to temporarily close to the public beginning July 27 through Aug. 16 for work to be completed in honor of the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment.

Historic Capitol Corridor Foundation begins work to compliment local suffrage events Metro Parks and the Historic Capitol Corridor Foundation announced. The work will complement local suffrage events that will be celebrated by the nearby Downtown Public Library, Hermitage Hotel and other organizations.

The Metropolitan Board of Parks and Recreation along with the Metro Council approved an in-kind gift from the Historic Capitol Corridor Foundation to make these physical improvements to the park and to provide public programming, staffing and maintenance of the park in the coming months.

The park will reopen Aug. 17-19 exclusively for scaled back suffrage-related events that will strictly adhere to CDC guidelines and Metro’s safety protocols related to COVID-19.

It will then close again from Aug. 20 through Oct. 5 during which time physical improvements will be made to beautify the park and make preparations for public programming and special events later in the year.

Application extended for COVID food benefits

Tennessee parents have additional time to apply for a program designed to help them feed their families during the COVID-19 pandemic. Applications will now be accepted online at tdhs.service-now.com for the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer until Aug.14.

This extension provides the Tennessee Department of Human Services with more opportunity to continue outreach efforts with community organizations.

P-EBT provides parents with $5.70 in benefits per child for each day that child qualifies. These benefits can be used to purchase food at any establishment that accepts EBT or online with Amazon, Kroger and Walmart.

To be eligible, children must receive free or reduced meals at school or attend a Community Eligibility Provision school. The program is designed to replace meals lost during the months of March, April, and May due to COVID-19 school closures.

“Hundreds of thousands of children currently have access to additional nutritional support through our P-EBT program and we want to make sure more families are aware of this opportunity,” said TDHS Commissioner Danielle W. Barnes. “These families depend on the meals their children

get at school and immediately faced an unexpected financial burden when those schools closed. By providing these families with the support they need now we are taking important steps to build a thriving Tennessee when the pandemic passes.”

TDHS initially launched P-EBT on June 12 by providing the benefits to qualifying families that take part in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. These families already have an existing EBT card and P-EBT benefits were automatically applied to those cards.

Families who do not currently receive SNAP or TANF need to apply for the program and will receive a P-EBT card in the mail after approval. Approval times can be delayed by inaccurate or incomplete information on the application so families are encouraged to double check all names and addresses to make sure they match what their children’s schools will have on file.

COVID-19 curbs seen taking heavy toll on people without internet

COVID-19 lockdowns mean poor people without internet access are being further marginalized, researchers and rights groups said, urging governments and telecommunications companies to do more to get them online.

From schooling to looking for jobs and applying for state aid, lockdown measures have shifted many key activities online while also making it harder for people on low incomes to get connected, according to French tech consultancy Capgemini.

“The internet has become a basic need. It’s no longer a ‘nice-to-have’,” said Aiman Ezzat, Capgemini chief operating officer.

“The lack of it prevents people from having access to public services, to education, to a chance in life. It just limits what you can do.”

Nearly one in two people worldwide do not use the internet, according to the United Nations’ internet and telecoms agency.

Even before COVID-19, campaigners say they faced bleaker life prospects due to social isolation and reduced employment and education opportunities.

Since lockdowns began, libraries and internet cafes that many use to get online have closed, said Helen Milner, who heads the Good Things Foundation, a British charity working on digital inclusion. Others who have a smartphone but struggled to pay for data can no longer access free hotspots, she said.

“They have to prioritise other things like food and rent,” said Milner.

A Capgemini survey of more than 1,300 people with no internet access in six countries — France, Germany, India, Sweden, Britain and the United States — found 69 percent were living in poverty.

More than 40 percent of the people who were offline were aged between 18 and 36, the survey found.

The poll was conducted between December and February, before most coronavirus lockdowns began, and Ezzat said the pandemic had exacerbated existing problems.

Some 1.6 billion workers, representing nearly half of the global labour force, are in immediate danger of losing their livelihoods due to the pandemic, the International Labor Organization said.

Milner said that in Britain and elsewhere people with no access to the internet were often unable to get information about the virus, talk to relatives, interview for jobs or asylum applications and access welfare programmes and banking services.

From Tunisia to the United States, phone companies in many countries have sought to address the issue with steps such as cutting prices, increasing broadband coverage and removing data caps, digital rights group Access Now said in a report last week.

But it said telecoms firms should do more, calling for them to lift all data allowances and waive overage and late payment fees. The report also urged governments to broaden connectivity and lift internet shutdowns in some restive regions such as those imposed by Myanmar and India.

“All around the world, decision-makers in government and the private sector have the obligation to step up and fix this problem,” Access Now’s global net neutrality lead Eric Null said in a statement. Courtesy of Reuters / Thomson Reuters Foundation / INSP.ngo