Savithri Vaithi

Vaithi's first social work was with a group known as the Barefoot Walkers in the Choolai slums of Chennai, working on health and education. She later set up a book bank and worked with children and homeless people in the city.

She founded the Monday Charity Club in 1974 and, four years later, opened Vishranthi as a home for elderly women who had been abandoned by their families. It began in rented premises; land at Palavakkam donated by A. V. Meiappa Chettiar allowed the home to move to permanent buildings. It admits women aged over sixty and by the 2010s housed more than 150 residents with about fifty staff.

The home provides food, regular medical attention and end-of-life care, and takes responsibility for residents' last rites. Vaithi performed the rites herself for many years, in a departure from convention in Tamil Nadu, where women did not customarily attend cremations.

She died in Chennai on 10 October 2020, aged 90, after a cardiac arrest.

A postage stamp bearing her likeness was released during the Monday Charity Club's golden jubilee celebration in 2020 by the Tamil Nadu minister for Tamil official language and Tamil culture, K. Pandiarajan.[2][3][4]