Zilverlijn
A chat and a listening ear
The volunteers from Zilverlijn phone elderly people in need of a good conversation. For a chat, or for a laugh. That is badly needed: The Netherlands has about 200,000 extremely lonely old people. The Zilverlijn is an initiative of the KPN Mooiste Contact Fonds and the National Fund for the Elderly.
Many elderly people have a need for personal contact: a chat, being able to laugh together with someone. The Netherlands has about 200,000 extremely lonely old people. These are people who have social contact no more than once every 4 weeks. Together with the National Fund for the Elderly, the KPN Mooiste Contact Fonds wants to do something about this major social issue. That’s why we launched the Zilverlijn in 2015. This involves approximately 1,000 volunteers making weekly telephone calls to elderly people in need of contact.
Volunteers
It’s simple. Elderly people who appreciate a call are telephoned by a KPN volunteer from a specially designed mobile center: the Zilverlijn bus. The Zilverlijn bus regularly parks at different KPN offices. This means it’s possible to keep the call center staffed with a revolving group of KPN volunteers.
The volunteers check that everything is ok with the elderly person that they have on the phone. The project is designed so that people don’t have to initiate the contact themselves. Signing up for a conversation with a volunteer is sufficient. In this way, the KPN Mooiste Contact Fonds wants to make it as easy as possible to register for the Zilverlijn.