THE ELDERLY STAY IN TOUCH WITH THEIR FAMILY WITH VIDEO CALLS

Abstract

On 11th March 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic began as a global health issue. It quickly turned into an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. It has reached everyone; our families, friends and all the world’s communities have been affected. Covid-19 has deepened fragility and increased humanitarian requirements; the need for aid has become more visible than ever. It became obvious that we all may need aid, but on the other hand we may all deliver it. It has also underscored the importance of local knowledge and contextual understanding to ensure that aid is more rapidly accepted and to speed up the capacity to intervene. Once the pandemic had been declared, volunteers and employees of the Slovenian Red Cross (SRC) responded and began sewing face masks, distributing food and medicine to quarantined people, measuring temperatures in public buildings, and supporting medical staff in health centres and hospitals. Practical experience from the field inspired volunteers from the SRC Novo mesto Local Branch to design a unique system of video calls, which is easy to use and implement and has almost zero costs.