Vayo SAATHI: anyone aged 18 or above can now register to volunteer for senior citizens; how to sign up

Any citizen aged 18 or above can now sign up as a Vayo SAATHI, a volunteer who keeps an elderly neighbour company and helps with the small tasks of a digital age. The Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment opened the call on Tuesday, 10 November 2026, six days after it launched a national campaign in New Delhi to bring the generations closer.

How to register

Registration is on the ministry’s senior citizens’ welfare portal, at seniorcitizen.dosje.gov.in/vayo-sathi, and on its JEEVAN mobile app. The online form asks for full name, date of birth, gender, highest qualification, address, pincode, state, district and a mobile number, which is verified with a one-time password. An email address is optional. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are both on the form’s list of states. The ministry’s announcement sets no closing date. Those who take part will get a Vayo SAATHI certificate, it said.

What a volunteer does

SAATHI stands for Support, Awareness, Assistance, Training, Health and Inclusion. Volunteers are meant to be friends and go-betweens for older people: showing them how to use digital services, pointing them to welfare schemes and community support, and warning them about cyber fraud. College students, working professionals and local volunteers can all join, the ministry said, and the work can be as simple as sitting with an elderly person for a while or teaching a skill.

The volunteers are one part of the Vayo Samman Rashtriya Abhiyan, which runs under the Atal Vayo Abhyuday Yojana and was launched by Social Justice Minister Dr Virendra Kumar on 4 November. The campaign follows what the ministry calls a 5C model (Connect, Converse, Co-create, Contribute and Continue) and has twelve themes, among them ’30 Minutes Together’, ‘My Story, My India’ and ‘Digital Dada-Dadi / Digital Saathi’. A handbook issued with it spells out what states, districts and local institutions are expected to do.

At the launch, Dr Kumar said about 10 crore Indians were aged 60 or more in 2011 and the figure is expected to reach 23 crore by 2036. He said migration, the move to cities and changes in family structure had reduced regular contact between the generations. The ministry intends to carry the campaign to villages and town neighbourhoods alike, with educational institutions, panchayats, other local bodies and community groups as its channels. Senior citizens who need help can call the national helpline on the toll-free number 14567, which works seven days a week.