The Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health in Goderich is sponsoring research this summer on loneliness among seniors.
Jesse Payne is originally from Bayfield and is in her second year at Queen's University in Kingston, studying Biotechnology and Neuroscience.
She is helping to start a one-year project called Lonely No More that focuses on reducing the social isolation that a lot of seniors feel, particularly those in rural communities.
Payne says the project focuses on creating networks between socially-isolated seniors so that they have a method of contacting each other and supporting each other. That also involves making seniors and their caregivers more aware of the tools and technology available to them.
But she says as helpful as the technology can be in helping people connect, it's not a replacement for personal contact.
The project is being supervised by Doctor Feng Chang at the University of Waterloo and is being funded by the Ontario Ministry of Seniors Affairs.
Jessie Payne, summer research student at Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health, Goderich (Photo by Bob Montgomery)