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Case Study - Cisco helps send calls out to lonely elderly people in need

Internet Protocol technology network leader Cisco® helps keep millions of people in touch around the world each day - but thanks to a handful of its North Sydney employees, the company is now keeping in touch with a number of lonely elderly people in the community who are most in need of daily contact.

Around 40 Cisco employees at its North Sydney office are volunteering for Catholic Community Services' 'Community Links', a program which involves volunteers telephoning a designated isolated older person at a set time each day, to help make sure they are safe and well.

Community Services is a service provider which works with the elderly, financially disadvantaged, people experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness, people with a disability, people with a mental illness, carers and children and young people with special needs or who are at risk of harm.

Volunteers and Community Links Manager Kerry Lovell started Community Links as a pilot program following the spate of seven lonely deaths reported in Sydney in early 2006. Community Links has now been launched as a full program, following another series of lonely death reports at the start of this year.

"We are enormously appreciative of the generosity being shown by Cisco and its employees," Mrs Lovell said. "It shows great community spirit from everyone involved. We have so many people living alone in the community, and the simple act of receiving a phone call each day can make all the difference to the wellbeing of so many. Being involved in a program such as this is equally enriching for the volunteers.

The Cisco volunteers work in pairs, sharing the daily telephoning duties with a client with whom the volunteers have been 'matched'.

"We see this service as more than one of monitoring a person's wellbeing," Mrs Lovell explained. "By matching volunteers and clients, we put people in touch with one another who have similar interests or personalities. A music-loving client, for example, will gain a great deal from receiving a call each day from a volunteer who is equally as passionate about music."

Cisco distribution channel Account Manager and local Cromer Heights resident Sarah Emmerson is one of the employees volunteering for Community Links. Mrs Emmerson has been with Cisco for eight years.

"Part of the reason I've enjoyed being with Cisco for so long is the involvement it has in the community," Mrs Emmerson said. "I've done some volunteering in the past, but it is hard to give time when working five days a week. It's so much easier to make the commitment by being able to do this in our work time."