Can loneliness be cured? Can isolation be eradicated? Can companionship be available to everybody? We think so. And we’re working towards these goals one person at a time.

Citizen Advocacy is dedicated to helping people with disabilities participate fully in community life. We do this by matching a volunteer advocate one-on-one to a person with a disability. Matches participate weekly in activities they both enjoy, planning what they’ll do and when they’ll do it at their own convenience.

Since 1974, Citizen Advocacy of Ottawa has supported over 2,000 people with disabilities and touched the lives of many more. Because Citizen Advocacy and our volunteer advocates work at an individual level, directly with the people we support, the impact is felt on a personal as well as a community level.

Volunteer advocates help increase the self-esteem and self-confidence of persons with disabilities so that they can develop a better sense of overall health. This translates into less dependency and a reduction in the use of costly health and social services.

There are more than 250 men and women across Ottawa waiting, on average, 2 years to be matched with a volunteer advocate.

We’d like to diminish those numbers so that nobody’s lonely, nobody’s isolated, and everybody has a friend.