After seeing images of elder abuse in nursing homes splashed across the media earlier this year, Tibetan migrant Shenphen Ringpapontsang realised he had to do something about it.

"It was just heartbreaking to see," Mr Ringpapontsang said.

"Our culture is one where elders are revered and loved unconditionally, and it's that sort of culture that makes Tibetans especially talented in the aged-care space."

Migrating from Tibet to Australia 20 years ago, Mr Ringpapontsang said a many of the more than 100 people in Canberra's Tibetan community work in the aged-care sector.

It's his home country's value of senior citizens that he hopes to bring to the table in Canberra, setting up the home-care service Amala, which is run and operated entirely by Tibetan refugees and migrants.

Since starting up in the past month, Mr Ringpapontsang said he has received dozens of inquiries from Canberrans, and are already looking after several clients, who are looking to stay in their own home.

"Amala means honourable mother in Tibetan, and it goes back to the concept that every being in the world has been a mother in a previous life," he said.

While Amala is currently looking after private patients in their homes, the Canberra start-up is in the process of applying to access patients who are on a federal government waiting list for care.

Councils on the Ageing chief executive Ian Yates said while there's no figures on how many private operators are working in the sector, there has been an explosion of registered providers.

"Last year the government put home-care packages in the hands of consumers, rather than the providers themselves," Mr Yates said.

"It means more people could enter the market and providers only had attract consumers to come to them, rather than go through government departments.

"There are tens of thousands of people wanting home-care packages and there aren't enough at the moment."

Mr Ringpapontsang said the take up in the first month had exceeded expectations.

"We didn't anticipate anything until the end of the year, but we started getting lots of inquiries," he said.

Amala has two on-call carers. One of them is Kalsang Damdul, who was born in a Tibetan refugee camp in India after his parents fled the country due to the political situation.

Mr Damdul has lived in Canberra since 2005 and has worked in a variety of nursing homes in the ACT.

"The government is pushing for people to stay at home longer and we thought we could make a difference to the community," he said.

"In our culture, we live together and serve the elderly with respect, and that's what we grew up with.

"We have a small Tibetan community in Canberra and we thought we could give back and contribute something to the Canberra community."

Amala's founder said he hopes the start-up would expand in months to come, and bring a touch of Tibetan culture to many parts of Canberra.

"There's been a big demand for not-for-profit motivated care services," Mr Ringpapontsang said.

"As Tibetans, we have something to offer."