Good companies strive to give customers what they want. Great companies create solutions where the problem itself is not yet recognized. They cater to a demand that lays dormant. Such products create a new category of consumers and pave way for new sets of services. And in the process, they make customers conscious of their unrealized needs. Our correspondents witnessed the birth of such a product at the launch event of Senior Circle, a premium assisted living facility and first-of-its-kind in Pakistan.
Imagine a scenario (dramatized in Senior Circle’s launch video available on YouTube) where you are an ambitious, talented, young and energetic thirty-something year old based out of Karachi, and have just received an offer for your dream job based in a western country. But your single mother is understandably unwilling to leave behind her cozy home in DHA-Karachi, to relocate to an unfamiliar city across the globe. Of course, you decline the job offer. Nothing comes before Mom!
Imagine also a scenario where you are already living in the UK, investment banking career on the up, young kids assimilating well to the culture, and wife just started her masters. “Well-settled” is what describes you the best. And then life hits you. Your father suffers a stroke and you are faced with a problem that has no happy solution. Your married sisters cannot move to Pakistan, the level of sacrifice you would have to make to relocate is unimaginable, and it would be unfair to ask your parents to move to the UK, a suggestion they will decline anyways. The guilt and worry eat at you every minute of every day.
Imagine a thousand shades of similar scenarios, and you will ask yourself, there has to be a solution. And now there is: Senior Circle! With the doors of its first branch open in Karachi, Senior Circle is Pakistan’s only premium assisted living facility where you would be happy to send your parents, or as the organization confidently claims, where your parents would want to live willingly.
Senior Circle is premium is the true sense of the word: located in one of the safest and most secure areas of South Karachi, surrounded by parks and a traffic free locale, they offer day-care services as well as private rooms for long-term residents with all the amenities of a 5-star hotel: excellent cuisine, exercise and skill-building classes, entertainment and game nights, private car and chauffer, nurses and medical staff on premises, all included in their packages. But most importantly, they offer the priceless intangible amenity: companionship.
“Studies have shown that loneliness is the weightiest factor leading to cognitive problems and a fast-declining health in old age. And the antidote is simply, the absence of loneliness. We are confident that elderly people who come from empty homes and will begin to call Senior Circle their residence, will add not months but years to their lives, Inshallah.” remarked Konain Hasan, CEO and co-founder of this new venture. The founders come from a background of caring for those who need it, with a very successful and effective therapy institute called The Circle – Caring for Children, which caters to children with special needs or learning deficiencies. With a catered plan created by internationally trained therapists, children accelerate their assimilation back into traditional academic systems in Pakistan.
There are a few welfare-based assisted living facilities in Pakistan. However, their business model is not aimed at providing comfort and premium care, and therefore are usually the choice of last resort. They are sometimes counterproductive and often lead to depression and other psychological ailments.
Premium assisted living facilities and retirement homes are a prevalent concept in western societies, where seniors willfully admit themselves to these vacation-esque institutions and enjoy life with likeminded people. Due to the exodus of talented young people out of Pakistan, there is a massive need for this facility, but taboo and stigma have prevented even a conversation to happen. This need, until recently, remained unrealized and in the subconscious. With this brave and groundbreaking initiative, you can now search out a solution, that would benefit everyone, and most especially the seniors in need of care.
If Senior Circle can live out their motto, then our society should find comfort in the fact that its seniors will never be alone, never uncared for, and will continue to enjoy life with new and similar friends. What a wonderful gift that is. “Comfort, care and elegant living for the elders; Peace of mind for their families. Aap ka khayal, hamari zimedari”.
