A call to break with unwanted loneliness

Ring ring. The phone rings. And it's not just any call. A person picks up on the other end. "Hello, how are you?" With this gesture, this question, and under the slogan "loneliness is not seen, it is felt," the 'La Caixa' Foundation has launched an initiative with the aim of making visible a reality that affects around three million elderly people in Spain.In Barcelona, according to the latest Òmnibus survey, 18.7% of the population over 65 years old declare feeling lonely sometimes (14.6% of the population) or often (4.1%). The initiative seeks to make this sometimes imperceptible reality visible. Thus, through a telephone booth, people who answer the phone can learn the stories of Javier, José, María Teresa, and Blanca: all of them share ---on the other side of the phone--- their experiences of unwanted loneliness and their evolution after participating in the Siempre Acompañados program of the 'La Caixa' Foundation. In this way, the action wants to show a reality through a call that, in turn, becomes a call to society.

The mission of the Siempre Acompañados program is to empower older people in situations of loneliness by placing them at the center, as active subjects of their own aging process, and accompanying them in the search for a full life based on fostering well-being and support relationships. Likewise, the program is committed to the involvement of citizens and the community environment to build alliances and work in networks. The objective is to raise awareness among citizens and minimize situations of loneliness among older people.

The program has provided personalized attention to more than 1,400 older people in Catalonia, and more than 3,300 throughout Spain and Portugal in 2025, 32% more than in the same period last year. All of this, through local social entities, using an innovative methodology and in constant evolution with the community and administrations.

In its more than 10 years of trajectory, the program has consolidated itself as a pioneering project both in addressing loneliness and in the intervention model. According to the latest study carried out, in the first six months of intervention, participants show themselves capable of reducing feelings of loneliness, whether social, emotional, or existential.

More than 80% of participants experience an increase in confidence,they feel more capable of facing loneliness and work on their personal growth. 85% of them better understand their emotions and connect more with their friends and family. In addition, 95% of participants, who were in a bad state when entering the program, perceive an improvement in their emotional state.

Fostering social relationships for a full life, with purpose and meaning

The increase in life expectancy, new forms of family coexistence, and a different organization of time use pose an increasingly complex reality, and from it arise new challenges, including loneliness. The Elderly Persons program of the 'La Caixa' Foundation, with more than a hundred years of history, aims to address these new challenges that arise in old age.

It is scientifically proven that facing loneliness and improving social relationships brings powerful benefits: increased psychological adaptation to situations of loss, illness, or chronic stress; improved health, emotional state, and life expectancy; increased quality of life; and decreased probabilities of getting sick and suffering from dementia.Likewise, the program has found that fostering social relationships facilitates a full life, with meaning and significance.

Currently, the Siempre Acompañados program is implemented in 13 territories across Spain. In Catalonia, the initiative is promoted from Sabadell, Terrassa, Tortosa, Girona, Tàrrega, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, and Lleida, in collaboration with local social entities. Likewise, the program is also implemented in Lisbon and Porto. In total, this year it has promoted more than 540 complementary community activities that have reached 12,000 people.

"Loneliness squeezes, squeezes, it squeezes more and more. Then you say: "My God, either I die or I get out of this." Because you don't feel like doing anything. Not talking, not picking up the phone, not going out... You're so fixated on being alone...: "Oh, how alone I am! And what am I going to do so alone?". And you don't think about anything. Loneliness is something horrible." This is how María Teresa Mazón Sans felt some time ago.

"I had a huge house and there came a time when I was sinking, the floor was falling on me. It was the first time in my life that I found myself alone," she recounts. "I started saying "I'm alone." I spoke less and less, I didn't even talk to myself, she recalls. She describes a loneliness that "envelops you: you are in a hole and it is sinking you, you are inside and it gives you the feeling that you are getting lower and lower". To learn to deal with her loneliness, María Teresa has had the help of the Siempre Acompañados program from the 'La Caixa' Foundation. María Teresa came to this service referred by her psychologist. The Siempre Acompañados technician, through regular contact with her, has guided her to achieve her goals: "Do you see that notebook over there? Everything Ana wrote to me that I had to do is there. It helped me a lot. She would tell me: "Well, María Teresa, what have you done today in the new apartment?" Well, I would have to buy some paintings. She would write in the notebook: "This week we will buy the paintings." The program has helped her improve her well-being: "They taught me to live how I want."

In addition to this accompaniment program, the 'La Caixa' Foundation has also launched the postgraduate degree in Attention to People in Situations of Loneliness at the University of Vic (UVic-UCC), focused on social and health professionals to promote intervention and a comprehensive approach to loneliness. It is the first program of its kind in Spanish that addresses loneliness from a global and multidisciplinary perspective.

"The call of loneliness": an experience to stop and listen

In order to make the phenomenon of loneliness visible, the 'La Caixa' Foundation has launched a campaign created in collaboration with four elderly people who have been assisted by the Siempre Acompañados program. A call inside a telephone booth invites society to listen, reflect, and act. It is a telephone call, but it is also a social call: a sound that leads us to stop for a few moments to reflect, understand, and live in a more present, empathetic, and close way. Those who experience it in the booth currently located at CaixaForum in Seville, or through the online format, can leave their messages and all of them will reach elderly people in situations of loneliness.

"Loneliness is very similar to the pain caused by being sick. It wears you down. You feel useless, that you do fewer and fewer things... As if you were disappearing for others and for yourself," explains José Perucho Miralles in the call. "Knowing that there is someone who listens to you, who cares about you, who asks you "How are you" from the heart..., saved me from sinking. This was the hand that kept me afloat in moments when I saw no way out of my life," says Javier Guiu Farrè.

"The Siempre Acompañados program helped me realize that I had been making myself small and had forgotten who I was. Now I have learned to love myself again. To prioritize myself, to take care of myself just as I had always taken care of others," Blanca Polanco Borràs relates. "I recovered the feeling of not being isolated or locked up. Of existing again," adds María Teresa Mazón Sans.

"The trajectory of the Siempre Acompañados program has taught us that listening is an essential skill for social transformation. Knowing that there is someone you can count on improves people's mood, especially those who are in a situation of loneliness. For this reason, from the 'La Caixa' Foundation, we continue to commit to accompanying them to contribute to improving their well-being," highlights the deputy general director of the 'La Caixa' Foundation, Marc Simón.