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.

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