Camilla Mahon got involved with Making Connections, an organisation that offers a hand of friendship to older people, after seeing how her grandfather's death affected her grandmother.

“My grandfather was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, and my granny took care of him for as long as she could,” the 22-year-old says. When her grandfather died, two years ago, her grandmother – “92 now and still very with it” – moved into the Mahon family home. “I’ve seen how upsetting it was for her to lose her partner of over 50 years.”

That experience prompted Mahon, who has just finished a degree in psychology, to become a volunteer. “I came across Making Connections and told them all about my grandparents and that I wanted to work with older people.”

The group, with works with health services in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, in south Co Dublin, matches volunteers with isolated older people – research suggests that loneliness is the single biggest issue facing older people in their communities.

“The first lady I met once a week for about a year. She never married and lived on her own in the family home. She had a car accident which resulted in her losing her independence. Initially, my role was to encourage her to go for walks,” Mahon says.

Over a year her weekly visits encouraged the woman to go back outside. “She had low self-confidence after the accident, but she was such a gem to visit. Over time she walked more, but then she died suddenly. It was such a shock. I took a few months off after that.”

Two months ago Mahon was assigned a new woman to visit. “She looks after her husband with dementia. They don’t have any children. The main purpose of my visit is to be there for her and not talk about medical things. Sometimes she wants to go out, and sometimes, if her husband has had a bad day, she wants to stay at home.”

Mahon says that, as well as giving something back to her community, she has benefited from volunteering with Making Connections. “I’ve made lots of new friends. There is a complete mix of people who volunteer – although they are mainly women. In fact, we need more men.”

In addition, “I’ve become more confident. I’m really shy, and I was very nervous that I wouldn’t have anything to say, but I’ve become more aware of other people through the volunteering. There is such a huge lack of human contact nowadays. I realise now that even saying hello to an older person on the street can make such a difference to their day.”

makingconnections.ie; National Volunteering Week starts on Monday; volunteer.ie