Making Elderly Entrepreneurs

The world around us speaks of youth and how the youth need to become self reliant and self dependent and the culmination of such discussions leads to skilled jobs or entrepreneurship. We at the Butterfly Project today are laying the seed for making “Elderly Entrepreneurs”. (https://www.facebook.com/TheButterflyProjectIndia)

We in India have an age related retirement for all skilled Govt and Pvt jobs in the market – 60 to 65 years.

With the average age of people inching towards 80 years – we are actually forcing almost 20 years of forced unemployment on the skills workforce of our country.
Let us spend sometime in thinking about them, their abilities, their skills and their ability to learn new skills.

And then lets put our minds together and bring a sea change – and let the change be “Elderly Entrepreneurs”.

Now WHY does making an Elderly Entrepreneur make sense?

1. They may actually be on a pension – thus making them less vulnerable and – able to take a risk with their lives
2. They have already held positions of power and training – and hence know the ins and outs of “how to behave and how not to behave” in their own businesses
3. They have seen how their parents passed their lives for 20 years doing nothing – and they HATE that very idea! This giving them the drive to work harder!
4. Most of the Elders are easily re trainable – eg smart phones etc 🙂
5. They have “worked” for 35 to 40 years for others on other people’s time and terms – now they wish to “recreate” their own ventures
   HelpAge India #respectElders #ElderlyEntrepreneurs

The challenges Elders face in becoming Entrepreneurs:

1. Banks refuse to lend to elders due to their age – this makes it impossible for elders to start up. And Banks are not even looking at creating new tools to borrow and make their loans secure for elders (in case of death)
2. Elders themselves are unsure of their trainability
3. Families do NOT support elders starting up
4. Most Elders are FORCED into leading lives of religious kinds – due to social pressures.
5. Technology changes

Now the interesting thing is – ALL the above challenges can easily be overcome!

So can we start thinking of Elders in the space of Entrepreneurship?

https://www.facebook.com/TheButterflyProjectIndia/