Madrid accompanies you: the app that unites the elderly with volunteers
Loneliness has become one of the major problems of today’s society. It silently and devastatingly affects the elderly around us.
The pandemic has increased this situation even more; in Madrid alone, almost 10% have been affected by isolation and fear.
What can technology do to help the elderly? Is it necessary to bring out the more social and human side of technologies? Can an application combat loneliness and bring them closer together?
Madrid te Acompaña is an application that helps coordinate the efforts of volunteers registered in the Madrid municipal programme to increase participation in accompaniment tasks, generate more actions and make it easier for more volunteers to sign up.
Voluntari@s por Madrid is the Madrid City Council’s municipal programme for citizen assistance. This organisation has more than 1100 volunteers who take part in humanitarian projects and actions in all areas of social life in the city.
Voluntari@s por Madrid was already working to help the most vulnerable in everyday household tasks, but it needed a platform to connect elderly people with volunteers in a more efficient and automated way.
The application had to put both parties in contact following search criteria based on geographical proximity, as well as checking that the volunteers were registered in Madrid’s volunteer system. As an extra point, it had to have a simple interface adapted to older people.
The process
With seniors as the focal point, a mobile app has been created that offers a specially targeted and optimised experience for the app user.
Seniors can ask for help with their daily tasks and volunteers, in turn, can consult the requests according to criteria based on geographical proximity.
Once the help to be provided has been selected, communication is initiated through a chat, where both profiles can specify specific indications, such as the time or place of the meeting.
Although this application was born at a time marked by the pandemic, its projection goes much further, as they will now have help with their daily tasks whenever they need it, free of charge.
Mobile app development with Azure, ASP.NET Core, SQL Server.
Mobile application with a social character.
“One of the priorities of the city of Madrid is to ensure that there are no elderly people who feel alone. Thanks to ‘Madrid te acompaña’ we have an application that links the elderly with volunteers, a technology at the service of citizens that will have a tremendous social impact”.
Begoña Villacís, Deputy Mayoress of Madrid
Results
- Optimised user experience adapted to an older user profile.
- Optimised security thanks to identity validation.
- Volunteer assessment, once the service has been completed.
- Connection of all parties in a simple, controlled, fluid and digitally adapted way.
We are ready for new challenges
