Five decisions that shaped the app.
Built for the first year, not the fifth
Someone three weeks off a plane needs different things to someone who has been here a decade. The Arrival Checklist exists because that first month is when the wrong advice costs the most.
Public directory, private community
The business directory is on the open web so anyone can find it. Rooms, jobs and Saath stay inside the app, where the people using them are known to each other rather than indexed by search engines.
One app, not five
A directory app, a rooms app, a jobs app and a community group. Chaana keeps what a Nepali household in Australia actually uses in one place, with one account.
The whole country
Listings scope to your suburb, your state, or all of Australia, and the guidance covers every state and territory, not just Sydney.
Nepali where it matters
The checklist carries each step in Nepali alongside English, because the steps that cost you money are the ones worth reading in your own language.
Where we are the same, and where we are not.
Plenty of what Chaana does, other community platforms do too. Saying otherwise would be dishonest. Here is each area, and where our approach is common ground.
- Business directory
- Categories from restaurants and grocers to migration agents and accountants, list and map views, suburb and state scoping, live open-now status from real hours, and one tap to call, get directions or open the website.
- Common ground. Most community platforms offer some version of this.
- Rooms
- Both directions: rooms on offer and people looking. Filter by price, bedrooms, multiple suburbs, gender preference, available-from date and walking distance to a station.
- Common ground, though the two-sided view and the station filter are less usual.
- Jobs
- Pay shown in full on the card, nineteen industries, shift time and exact hours, payment type, work days, and the certifications a role actually requires.
- Common ground, with more shift-level detail than most.
- Arrival Checklist
- Steps in order, with each title in Nepali too, and progress saved to your account, starting with what you can legally bring through the border. Direct links to the real government forms, transport guidance for every state and territory, and the specific warning that belongs on each step.
- Chaana-specific. This is the part no other platform in this space walks newcomers through.
- Saath
- Thirteen categories, including Scam Alert and five named scam types. A pinned scam alert surfaces on the home screen so it is seen the same day.
- Some platforms run general forums. The category structure and the pinned alert are ours.
- Events
- Cultural, Music & Dance, Food & Drink, Sports, Community and Workshops categories. Date, time, venue and price on one page, a Book Now link, add to calendar, and a message or call to the organiser when they have left a number.
- Common ground across community platforms.
The right-hand column is our current reading of the landscape of community platforms serving Nepali Australia. If any of it is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
We are not trying to be everything. We are trying to be the one place that helps with the things that matter, and connect our community with a platform they can trust.
See for yourself. Then decide.
Browse the directory on the open web. Open a feature page and scroll through the actual screens. Nothing here is behind a signup.