Starter Kit. Idea 350 of 500. Cluster 17
Home adaptations for the elderly: ramps, grab rails and safer bathrooms, so a parent can stay in their own house
The mechanism, from the book
Sri Lankans abroad have parents at home whom they cannot look after from Melbourne. They will pay, and the money stays.
The first step
With the family's agreement, visit 5 homes where an elderly parent lives alone and note the risks: steps, a slippery bathroom, nothing to hold. Fit grab rails and a ramp in one house with a local builder and photograph it before and after. Then show the photographs in 2 groups for Sri Lankans abroad and offer a home check at a fixed fee. Families who book the check and then the work are the proof.
- Who pays first
- A Sri Lankan abroad who worries about a parent falling at home, and would pay to make the house safe rather than move the parent out.
- What leaves today
- Parents leave their own homes for care, or for their children's countries, when a few rails and a ramp would let them stay.
Ask first
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask whether ramps or changes to the front of a house need their approval.
- Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Ask which standard applies to grab rails and non-slip bathroom fittings.
Check before you spend
The owner's written consent and agreed price before work starts, that fitters are trained to fix rails safely, and insurance for work inside homes.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a family abroad pay to make a parent's house safe?
- What does one bathroom with rails and a ramp cost in materials?
- How many families abroad ask after seeing one finished house?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lankans abroad. Chapter Two
"anyone who has lived in London or Toronto or Melbourne knows where to find them"
The children who pay live far away and are easy to find; the parent stays safely at home.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.