Home away from home

Care for your loved ones who don't live with you.

Many of us have parents or close relatives we need to care for, who live in a different city. Although they may have their own informal support network, meeting day to day needs can be a challenge. Online shopping does solve part of the problem, as does video chatting and messaging.

Sometimes issues that are not routine crop up and are difficult to manage remotely by other family members trying to help. Aging parents/relatives are also not always the most tech-savvy. The current situation with COVID-19 has made things more difficult for everyone involved. Examples of some of the issues that families face while trying to support their loved ones remotely, are

• urgent need for additional house help

• medical need for assistance in the house, or assistance with visits to clinics

• smaller day-to-day tasks like buying bakery items, groceries or getting medication from pharmacies in the area

• healthy home cooked meals

How can a family who lives away, access information from their parents/relatives locality in order to better manage the situation from afar ? What if urgent help is required from their neighborhood, as their informal support network is unreachable or out of town ? What if the need of the hour is to reach out to their locality, beyond traditional connections ?

Ripple has a great feature that enables users to access information from the locality of their parents/relatives, needing assistance or support. You don't need to join specific groups. Your parents network is around them, which you can remotely reach out to.

Set your parents or relatives 'location' on whose behalf you are posting for assistance. Click the 'icon' to set their locality on a map, if it is not set from before or you need to change it. The number of users in their remote locality is indicated. Create a post by appropriately 'tagging' it to reach others in the locality who are willing to help.

Move the 'location range' slider to select your post's local reach, in your parents location. You can specify your post's local reach from as near as 25 meters to a max of 3 km radius. Local users within that range will receive your post.

You can post on your parents or relatives behalf for their various local needs, especially if they are not tech-savvy. Other users in their locality will receive the post if they are willing to help i.e. they have enabled the 'reach out' tag in this case. The post's 'location icon' also indicates that you are remotely seeking local assistance for someone the receiver is nearby to.

Users from the locality can respond either directly or via an auto created group chat. Details of the assistance required can be discussed and a location can also be shared.

The Ripple Effect

Many a times we need to reach out to our aging parents and relative's locality for assistance or to interact on their behalf. Ripple provides a platform to reach out beyond traditional connections, without having to share personal contact information or without previously having to know anyone in their locality.

A 3 km radius is approximately 28.3 sq. km coverage area. In a city like Bangalore with a population density of 12K plus people per sq. km this translates into 350,000 people! So even if a fair percentage of people in a locality install the app and are willing to help out, it could have a BIG impact.

So what are you waiting for. Download Ripple now. Get connected today!

Understand how Ripple works.