Hella Mundhra

Mundhra was born in 1939 in Hameln, Germany, and grew up in the war and post-war years. She has described being shaped by high-school teachers committed to humanism and pacifism, and by the writings of Stefan Zweig, and deciding as a teenager to work against discrimination.

As a student she became interested in India through the writings of Vinoba Bhave. She had intended to become a teacher, but on deciding to marry Dwarka Das Mundhra, a young Indian doctor, and to live in India, she trained in medicine instead.

In the 1970s Mundhra and her family settled in Bangalore, where they set up the Ashok Nursing Home, treating patients regardless of their ability to pay. She began running health camps in nearby slum settlements, and started admitting critically ill children to the nursing home for prolonged treatment. Out of this she established Shishu Mandir as a home for children; there were soon sixteen children in her care.

Dissatisfied with the quality of the private schools the children attended, she started an experimental school of her own, which grew into the Shishu Mandir English Medium School. The organisation now runs a children's home, a childcare centre, a school, skills training and higher education support, community development and women's empowerment programmes, and adoption services, at Hella Nagar in Virgo Nagar, Bengaluru.

Mundhra returned to Germany in 1995, after her marriage ended and because most of her fundraising was taking place there. With Carolin, a doctor who had volunteered with Shishu Mandir from its early days, she set up the Shishu Mandir Society in Germany to formalise the fundraising.

In 2025 Mundhra was awarded the Verdienstkreuz, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, for her service. Shishu Mandir has received a number of institutional awards, including the Rotary International Peace and Understanding Award in 2006-07 and 2015, an Education Udaan NGO award in 2011, the Bengaluru NGOs Leadership Award in 2017, the British Council International School Award for 2018-2021, and recognition as best adoption centre in Bangalore by the Government of Karnataka in 2025.[2][3]