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Can we convince the retired and the elderly to gather together into ‘day schools’? Would it be viable, or are there too many competing social/cultural blockers in either direction? My main goal is to get my grandparents going out, working out, and making and taking to (new) friends!

Aug 4, 2026 update

I wrote some of this as a memo to a Nepal Government ministry. Nothing is likely to come from it, but here’s the relevant part.

The great thing about this initiative is, there can be small-scale, grassroots, municipal-level experiments that don’t need a grand national-scale plan. As you mention earlier, the Innovation Ministry’s role can be networking, coordination, and high-level guidance setting, and consolidating the learnings.

I do believe the outcomes of this initiative would have very positive PR in a global context too.

Potential stakeholders who could be engaged:

1. Students at BSW/MSW programs, but volunteers aged 16 and above in general
2. Anybody over the age of 55/60, and capable of independent physical functioning
3. Schools, physiotherapists, education entrepreneurs, teachers, creatives, artists
4. Investment clubs, social clubs, etc
5. Municipalities and other local bodies who could take the lead here

See this for what initially inspired me: https://www.kbc.co.ke/dancing-with-the-aunties-how-china-keeps-its-seniors-active-and-joyful/

Aug 4, 2026 Update

Some additional thoughts on this after reading up a bunch and consulting friends and experts.

• There’s already a municipality doing this in Nepal. Let’s reach out to them and see where they’re at. Turns out there’s quite a few!

• Tarkeshwar Municipality is the one that’s done it at the biggest level. Here’s the news article on it.

  • Article from when the project began. They want to use the project as a Model School for the elderly. Makes sense.

• Here’s an old article from 2019, that mentions Khalanga. It mentions daycare, but the idea is similar

• This one is from Rampur-5, Ramghat

  • Yet another article, about the same school in Ramghat, in Palpa

  • Here’s the link to the official document that defines the goals of the project, right from the municipal website. It’s a couple of years old, so it must have taken them ~5 years to execute. Gives a general sense of the timelines involved.

• TODO: Find contacts for all of the municipalities, reach out to them, and see if they’d be willing to talk.

• What really concerns me: Can this be a viable private-only business, does it need public-private partnership with voucher system or some subsidy system, or is it only sustainable as a government-run thing? My hope/desire/aspiration is for this to be completely private venture at least to cater to upper/middle classes.

• Here’s a list of what the organizations have been doing. I used gemini to collate this list, I think that’s an acceptable AI usage.

• I’m thinking we’d have to adapt these to more upper/middle-class activities, or more urban-oriented activities, but that’s not unapproachable. Additionally, if we can get funding/collab from other municipalities, even implementing it in Kathmandu in a similar way is viable. My aunts wouldn’t mind going to one of those with yoga and meditation and singing!

• A parallel structure from the US is ‘activities/leisure centers’, and Community College classes. Are those activities centers and leisure centers profitable? What about the college classes? Can I reach out to some of the organizers in the US, and are there lessons to be learned? TODO: See if anybody from this industry would be willing to give me pointers
• What are the costs of NOT doing it. The cost of failure, and the actual cost cost of doing it are not so high. The failure of doing it…could be high. Can that be a motivation to drive me?

Can we convince the retired and the elderly to gather together into ‘day schools’? Would it be viable, or are there too many competing social/cultural blockers in either direction? My main goal is to get my grandparents going out, working out, and making and taking to (new) friends!

• Just like people are spending much for children’s education, they should prioritize their parents’ and grandparents’ well-being and education as well.

• A large % of over-55 population in the Kathmandu valley is very lonely
• Big chunk of the middle- to upper-middle class
• Their (grand) children have left to study/work abroad, or are living their own happy lives. No space for the elderly.
• Opportunity: create an elderly school, where they can practice basic physical exercises, have friends to walk with, get to talk to people, learn new skills, artistic explorations, singing, drinking tea out in the Sun, travel groups, hiking, etc. Poker competitions etc? Dancing mothers and grandmas in China?
• Sales pitch: The grandparents go to school with the grandchildren, and learn just like them! To avoid the negative connotations associated with ‘old peoples homes’

• It’s an elderly wellbeing business, providing intellectual, social and fitness opportunities

• students have complete physical mobility and general mental agility, and aren’t very needy because it’s harder to cater to their needs. opportunity to expand into elderly care business later

• TAM (total addressable market size)? Total number of potential students we have is in the order of hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

• Potential profits? Not a bumper money-making initiative, but lotta value in providing a space for the elderly to grow intellectually, socially, and physically, and find a space for similar-minded people like themselves. Needed more and more, will gain popularity.

• not affordable for everybody, but it’s a bit of a compliment because they are saying, “We really want your product, but we can’t afford it.”
• you can’t afford our product right now, but if we made it cheaper, we wouldn’t be able to afford keeping our lights on and supporting you
• If many need to be served, there should be other businesses who might be able to cater to them or the govt should subsidize them.

• How much could we charge? Rs 10K a month? 20K?

• Potential collaboration with local and provincial governments. give them the framework and training for a charge and help them run similar schools all across the country.
• Govts will take care of budgeting and marketing and so forth.

• Won’t be to our standards and won’t strictly follow our program rigor and quality, but they will fill a much-needed gap in the market, in the demographics, in the social space, which is the need of a community, a need of a physical workout group, and an intellectually challenging opportunity, a growth space where folks can learn new things and topics that they never had the chance to explore.

• Potential challenge around class and caste. Might be segregating themselves by caste and class even though they’re paying around the same money.
• Opportunity for our parents and grandparents to be pleasantly surprised when they intermingle with people from different socio-economic groups.

• Our teachers used to force us to sit next to people we were not our friends so we wouldn’t make noise. We’ll making our students sit with people they don’t know, so they make more noise, so they’re more social, interacting with everybody.

• The other challenge is the financial.
• Tight margins
• Elderly wellbeing is expensive
• If you want to provide quality service, you have to pay good money for it.
• employees expect decent wages
• Can’t say “I’m going to start paying you less money, and as a result of that, you need to start optimizing how you live your life.”
• want to give people good, decent, reliable jobs that they can be happy and satisfied in, but that also fulfills their economic need.
• Because of NGOs and INGOs, we think anything that’s socially good should come for free, and money shouldn’t be playing a part in it.
• Push back on that. If you want to serve your community, you need something in return unless you are otherwise very wealthy.
• It doesn’t matter where it comes from: it can come from customer pocket, it can come from the government’s pocket, or it can come from a wealthy person’s pocket, but there needs to be money coming in.
• Just like people are spending much for children’s education, they should prioritize their parents’ and grandparents’ well-being and education as well.