10% - 20% of Finnish population report being lonely.
Via Voluntary Friend Service 8500 trained FRC volunteers meet over 30 000 lonely people every year
Volunteers and people in need of a friend are connected by voluntarty friendshipbrokers at over 200 local service points across Finland
In 2018 FRC introduced electronic befriending system to help friendshipbrokers at their work
The system:
Allows volunteers and people in need of a friend to fill out their own information cards
Directs the information automatically to the correct service point and stores it into a register
Has different options that make it possible to do specified searches from the volunteer and customer registers easily (for example search for the female volunteers, over 65 years, who have skills to support mental health patients)
Makes suggestions about pairs based on the information they have delivered
Can be used via Internet and by many brokers simultaneously
For more information, please contact
Matti Hetemäki
Planning Officer FRC HQ
matti.hetemaki@redcross.fi
+358 20 701 2189