 Imagine a world in which every single human being on the planet has equal access to the sum of human knowledge. Together we are creating the most comprehensive encyclopedia that has ever existed, Wikipedia. Since early 2012, the non-profit that supports Wikipedia started a program called Wikipedia Zero, which creates partnerships with cellular carriers to waive the data charges to access Wikipedia on cell phones. You might think that such data charges are trivial. We want to show you that they aren't. Take a moment to watch this film. We would like to invite you to raise your voice with us, to sign a petition to ask for free access to Wikipedia. Wikipedia belongs to all of us. And together we can make things happen. This is our story. We will start again. Hello, this is the letter that me and my classmates wrote. One, one, two, three, four. Confidence. Letter to Celsius, MTN, Vodacom and EITAR. We are learners in grade 12 at Sininjong High School. Joslovo Park kept out. We recently heard that in some other African countries like Kenya and Uganda, certain cell phone providers are offering their customers free access to Wikipedia. We think this is a wonderful idea and would really like to encourage you also to make the same offer here in South Africa. Thank you. From the age of six years I grew up in this area, Joslovo was started in 1995. It's a very small township yet very populated and there are many, many shacks in this same yard. This is the first one. That one is the second, the third and the fourth. This one is the fifth one and that one is that small shack I live in with my uncle. Here in Joslovo, a lot of people here have talents which are not recognized. As Nelson Mandela said, we are free and we are quite free, but I wouldn't say that we are free because living in a slum is not quite free. Now we're not free. People are not employed. Our parents are not employed. So we don't always get everything we wish we could have as children. As you can see that this is our school and this is the rubbish and for us as Sinanjonga High School we don't think we deserve to learn in these conditions. But living here I think it is at some point an advantage because it makes me determined to become a better person in life because I want to change the situation that I live under. I take education as a key. I want to work hard for my future so that it can become something big. If you are educated you can be the person you really want to be. These learners who are in metric now were born just before 94 or they were born just after. So they have not grown up under the laws of apartheid but they still feel the effects of it. I'm dressed like a Zulu girl. They represent that you are a girl. You're still a virgin. And me, I'm a mother. Sometimes we don't have enough resources like books to study, to go to the library, it's a one hour walk. So you can get there at 5 o'clock, they are already closing. The only reading material that these learners have is their textbooks. In homes here you won't find reading material. So then how do learners access information? My name is Mrs. Wepovesi. This is the where I live. It's a one room house. It has got my mom inside and my sister who has also started at Sinaito High School. And this is my daughter so I can go inside. My dad passed away. My mom tried by all means to feed us. We could beg for some money. I would go with her and I would try to motivate her. And that gave me a lot of strength. That's how I want to become a nurse. It's Wikipedia. Wikipedia means a lot to me. I love to read things on Wikipedia to get some more information especially for my career. This is it. These are the structures of thymine. Ayopec name. It's five and five. When I have to get into Wikipedia I have to buy 20 and eight times. And it costs a lot of money. It's me that I helped my mom to buy food. And I have to sacrifice that money. So it's difficult for me but I try by all means. As much as it's hard for us to access information here it's quite amazing. We all have cell phones. Everyone could get the information they need. But now that we need airtime to access Wikipedia it's like if you don't have money you don't have information. If you have money you have the information. With Wikipedia you have some backup. You have somewhere where you can read about the things you need to know. There's this high school class in South Africa who wrote an open letter to cell phone providers in South Africa. They want free access to Wikipedia on their cell phones so they can do their homework. I started researching about the class and found that they heard it. This had happened in other countries and thought why not us. Since I started working here you really get to meet people from all around the world who don't have free access to information. It's behind a pay wall. There's no internet connectivity. They live under an oppressive government and don't have access. My dad was born poor. He was born in a slum and didn't have access to educational materials just like these learners. So I really feel personally motivated by this. So first things first hi. Hi. My name is Victor. You can call me Victor. My last name is Grigas. My full name is Victor Hamilton Grigas. Anything else you want to call me you'll have to do so in private. So you guys wrote an open letter. We noticed therefore I'm here. We're here to support that. You get like a weenie and a bun. A fat cook. That's a fat cook? This is how you open a PR. I'm going to take a photo of a fat cook and we'll start an article. You guys hold them together and I'll get a close-up. And our faces. And then hold on. Say cheese. You are going to take pictures of Joslova Park. And then we can upload those to Wikipedia. And then you become the experts. You get to take this camera home and record your family. When you want to record it's this red button right here. So in the battery comes out like that. Stella Bosch. Oh my friend. So what did you decide to wear? So I was talking connecting. Connecting? Connecting through SMS. We are living in a world where school children need to access technology to do well in life. Our learners are not exposed to a lot of things. So with Wikipedia we're opening up a new world that might not be known to most of them. So for me, Wikipedia is a window. In fact, I would describe it as sitting on the wings of a hawk and flying high on top of the sky looking down and what is going around them. From prison on 11th February 1990 and on his election as president of South Africa on May 1994 Nelson Mandela addressed the issue here. The speech was about being united as one and for him we're coming the president of South Africa so that he can make everything for everyone equal. So that's Wikipedia. That's what we want from Wikipedia to make the knowledge for everyone equal. Their situation, their lack of access to information that's normal for most of the world. It doesn't have to be like that. It doesn't have to be that way. Today has penetrated into the very bottom of the socio-economic ladder. Six billion people today have cell phones. If people understand it cell phones are ubiquitous and Wikipedia is free and all you have to do is connect those two things together then you have free access to information right there in their pocket every day, all the time. It's a game changer. Okay, this is my house. Only one packet so we fight. We are three in one packet. This is my cell. Now we are taking a tour to the back. My name is Tika Kilim and this is where I stay with my two dogs. Oh yeah, that's my house. Hello guys, my name is Snowbongo. He is my mum. This is my bed where I study. These are all my books. Welcome to Lutus World. This is my house. The streets are flooded. Yeah, when it rains the streets become flooded. Just level is like that. The conditions are not really favorable. But there's a lot of talent in just level talent that it's like a gold mine. Sometimes you see the rubbish and you think it's useless. But once you dig deep in that rubbish you might find gold. I'm Lukanya. I came here to study at the University of Batistrand. There are formages and statistics. I've never valued education as I value it right now where I'm at. Once you do actual science you notice that it's not about what you have but it's about how you use what you have and the how comes from being educated. And so that will give you a lot of resources but the population is not really educated. I don't know how to use our resources effectively. I want to go into politics because I want to change places like just level to become places like where I'm at right now in this University. I don't think I would have gotten where I am right now without the help of Wikipedia. I don't. Once you educated you can think originally and if you have a heart and you educated there's nothing that's impossible to you. I want to become a medical practitioner because I want to give back to the society. I want to change people's lives. Wikipedia I can say it happens a lot because I learned there and I found my career there in electrical engineering. That's my future career now. When I'm older I think I'll become a surgeon or a neurologist. I think of myself being big. There are very few female geologists and I want to change that and show that we are also capable of something best in life. I really want to work in the mine searching for the minerals so that the economy of the country can grow and grow and grow and grow become better. Making it free for students to access Wikipedia it ultimately will make a difference to the country. There's a long term benefit for communications companies. You're creating a more data savvy more sophisticated consumer and the more educated a consumer generally the more they spend on their mobile phones. And then this other day Pete told us guys do you know that you can write up your own articles on Wikipedia and we're like really our class went out together to take pictures of Joe Slavo. And then we could take them and we can put them on Wikipedia. I myself am proud. I just want the world to see the places that we are coming from. There was so much that was not there on Wikipedia that we could add especially in the course of Wikipedia Wikipedia in our own language. I'm trying to write an article about omnosha. It's going to be a new article. I think this will travel me more females in my den. It's supposed to be Dalibo. Wikipedia it's like a portal to share our own ideas share our own information. It's amazingly empowering I think for them to be part of that whole movement because it's like a movement, it's like a revolution. I hope that this is a spark that starts a fire. We need to think out of the box. Wikipedia is a solution that's making our dreams my possibility. It's not about us or about me anymore now it's about other children who need all of the information that's available on Wikipedia for free. Six billion people have access to cell phones. Wikipedia is free but data charges stop billions of people from even using it. Please sign our petition and encourage cellular carriers to provide free access to Wikipedia on cell phones.