Impact With Intention: Tamara Binladin, Founder, Elder Square Having founded Elder Square, a daycare center dedicated solely to the UAE's elderly, Tamara Binladin is spearheading purposeful change within the nation's diasporic communities.

When one listens to Tamara Binladin explain why she launched Dubai-based senior community and health daycare center Elder Square, it becomes quickly evident that she intends for the place to be a quiet sanctuary of comfort and care tucked away in the middle of a buzzing city. And much of that sentiment stems from Binladin's personal observations on how a shift in socioeconomic factors has slightly ostracized the UAE's elderly, particularly those who are a part of the plethora of diasporic communities in the nation.

"If you look at the Middle East, the elderly, especially in religion and in culture, are the pillars of the community," Binladin says. "But with our fast-paced lives, and how things have changed literally in one generation, from our parents' generation to our generation, where you have both the husband and the wife working, and the kids are out of the house longer due to after-school activities, the elderly have become marginalized. The cities have developed so fast, but not for them. Every corner you turn around and you look at, there's something new for kids, but there's nothing new for the elderly, except clinics, healthcare, hospitals. So, this community has been neglected. And overall, I noticed this as a trend in general, and then as I dug deeper and as I did my research, Dubai is actually becoming a place that needs something like Elder Square the most, because of the large expat community. You see, in all the other countries, the governments take care of their nationals. But here in Dubai, we're mainly expats here. So, who's taking care of the elderly among the expats here?"

It was a direct answer to this question that Binladin launched Elder Square in March 2024 in Dubai's Jumeirah 1 neighborhood. Built with a mission to elevate the quality of social life and healthcare for individuals aged 60 and above, the center offers a myriad of services, including regular health check-ups, medication management, as well as immediate access to a team of medical profession- als including physiotherapists, nutritionists, orthopedic specialists, general practitioners, and nurses.

Source: Elder Square

But do not mistake Elder Square for a nursing home—in fact, Binladin is emphatic about that being something she was strictly against creating—but for good reason. "Nursing homes require the elderly to live away from their families, but in the UAE, if a senior member is here, then it's not because they want to be away from their family; it's because the family wants to live with that elderly individual," she notes. "That therefore erases the nursing home business [model]. The daycare model, on the other hand, satisfies the needs of two streams of the elderly in Dubai: the first of these are the ones that are more or less okay, because they come from a healthy lifestyle, but they just can't be left home alone. So, they need a place that will just look after them with light medical supervision. The second—and this comprises a lot of the elderly that come in—are the seniors who absolutely require medical care, and this is the group that Elder Square targets, and, I think, benefits the most. The people that need the psychology consultations, the homeopathy consultations, the ones that need the physiotherapy on a regular basis—this is for whom the programs and the activities are primarily designed for."

Related: Enabling Healthtech Is Essential to Attain Future Global Wellbeing

So, how are the activities at Elder Square curated to help the elderly that require regular medical attention? "We have, for example, where other daycare centers or nursing homes abroad will have a simple morning yoga stretch, else we have our physiotherapist lead a group physiotherapy session, so it's a slightly more medically-designed activity," Binladin explains. "Or, for example, one of the activities that we do is story and memory-telling led by a psychologist. It's not just sitting down and just talking about a story; it's led by a psychologist. And because the way the center is designed is, where the daycare is downstairs, and the clinic is upstairs, the elderly can go in for their sessions as they need, and they don't have to go to a separate location to take care of themselves. So, it's quite convenient for them, especially because transportation may be an issue. The elderly usually need a companion with them; they just don't go to doctors by themselves. As such, it's kind of like a 360-degree, comprehensive approach with us saying, 'Come spend your time with us, and we'll either help you aid with your aging, or help you fix your problem(s).'"

Having built her venture as the UAE's first dedicated healthcare center for individuals aged 60 and above, Binladin has ensured that Elder Square is in line with Dubai's ambition to become a global healthcare hub. Source; Elder Square

However, enabling such independence from the elderly doesn't mean that their primary guardians aren't a part of the bigger picture at Elder Square. "We definitely encourage full involvement from the caregivers," Binladin says. "Because for the caregivers, whether it's the nurse taking care of them at home, or their own children, the seniors are going through a phase of their life that they're learning to deal with, and so are their caregivers! So, it's very, very crucial, especially for the wellbeing of the elderly, that their children know what's happening in their life. They're not just a grumpy old person, because they're a grumpy old person. They may have chronic pain, or they are depressed when they lose the ability to do the activities that they could have done normally just maybe a few years ago. There's also frustration and grief when a spouse dies. You know, we sometimes forget that our parents too have attachments to their spouses. So, at Elder Square, we have a monthly events calendar, where we aim to do support groups for the caregivers to include them in the treatment plan for their seniors."

Now, while there is clearly a lot of goodwill driving Elder Square's operations, it mustn't be forgotten that the center is still, at the end of the day, a business. As the sole founder of the venture, this fact is obviously not lost on Binladin—but the entrepre- neur has also taken certain measures to not let profit- ability take centerstage. "Yes, Elder Square is very much a business but one that has a lot of good intentions underneath it," Binladin says. "But when it comes to the elderly in Dubai, first of all, after a certain age, insurance either doesn't cover their cases, or the insurance process is simply outrageous. So that's why I make use of a cash-based model; I don't take insurance. And I don't see myself changing that any time soon. This ensures that the patient is actually getting what they pay for at the center. So, this is number one. Number two is that our prices are affordable. Now, is it a business? Yes, it is, and I am making profit. But is it outrageous? Am I milking the patient for every instance? That's the thing I wanted to avoid, and so, this is where I'm kind of, like, 'I don't want to sell something that they don't need to them.'"

Elder Square provides a secure and nurturing environment designed for senior adults to maintain their independence, while also offering them a variety of activities for them to participate in. Source: Elder Square

To ensure that she stays true to this philosophy, Binladin kickstarted the venture with the plan that Elder Square will offer its services for three days a week, for either half a day, or a full day. But that plan quickly fizzled out—and it was largely due to the diverse needs of the seniors in Dubai and the wider UAE. "They either want a flexi-pass or a monthly pass," Binladin says. "So, the flexi-pass is for the ones that are not so ill, or don't need a lot of medical care. But then, sometimes, they could just be a little tired one day, and opt not to go [to the center]. And then, you have the ones that want to get a monthly package— they'd get, let's say, access to a doctor consultation at the beginning of the month, and then weekly check-ins to see progress. So, while I initially thought the model would be one-dimensional, it's completely changed, because the thing about my target market is they come from all different backgrounds. In Dubai, if you take two 80-year-olds, one from a certain nationality, one from another, they are completely different, because of lifestyle and expectations and so on. So, I'm really getting to see something really wonderful, and such a broad spectrum of the elderly in this city."

Following this approach, in just over six months since its launch, Elder Square has already seen the admission of over 60 elderly people from Dubai and the wider UAE. And so far, the response has been positive, Binladin says. "Honestly, every single time the clientele come in, I hear not just from them, but also from their children, guardians, and caregivers about how happy they [the elderly] are to come," Binladin reveals. "They get dressed up for this, and they want to come. Whether there's a lot of people on a given day or not, they want to show up anyway. One lady said that her father wanted to come to see his new friends at the "thing," i.e. our center. All these little things kind of just show me that I'm on the right track, and that this is definitely something that the community needs."

Source: Elder Square

Such feedback has also been a heartening reaffirmation of the reason why Binladin named her venture Elder Square in the first place. "It was actually a very, very long process to name Elder Square, because the idea started off as just something along the lines of a social club," Binladin says. "But a social club implies you're either in or out, and I didn't want that. I didn't want that feeling to be part of Elder Square. A square—like a piazza, like a riad, like a center—is where everyone from the community comes and gathers. So, some people just sit around, or they play backgammon in the square, they can have their coffee, or they have a little catch-up gossip session with their friends. That is where the Square in the name comes from."

Binladin adds here that this is the sentiment that she hopes to make use of as a baseline for her venture's growth and development in the future. "To be honest, I absolutely love what Elder Square is right now," Binladin says. "I've learned a lot in the past six months about the seniors in Dubai, what they want, and so on. I think that the current model and structure is exactly what we need for the moment. So, I don't think I will be changing that in the next two years at least; I think this will really deliver what the market needs right now. Long-term wise, I don't imagine myself turning Elder Square into one of those large facilities with 150 people—no, that then becomes something different. This is kind of like a little square, where people of a given community come to. And then in another district in Dubai, we can have another Elder Square, where people of that community go to. That's how I see this happening for the next two to three years; I just want to see more little Elder Squares pop up and expand throughout the city."

Related: 10 Insights On The Business of Healthtech In The MENA Region