S.G. Susheelamma

Founder

S.G. Susheelamma is the founder of Sumangali Seva Ashrama [1], an Indian non-profit working on women & children, orphans & child care and elderly from Bengaluru.

S. G. Susheelamma is an Indian social worker in Bengaluru and the founder-president of Sumangali Seva Ashrama, a voluntary organisation registered under the Karnataka Societies Act that works with destitute women, orphaned children and low-income communities. She founded it in 1975 with M. Kanthamma, who became its secretary. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2026 for social work.

Career

Susheelamma and Kanthamma set up Sumangali Seva Ashrama at Cholanayakanahalli in Bengaluru in 1975. The organisation's own account describes an extremely modest start, with fifteen rupees in hand and three children to look after. Susheelamma has said that her commitment to service dates from an experience in the ninth standard, when she distributed textbooks to pupils who could not afford them.

The ashrama works on Gandhian lines and has become one of Karnataka's better-known social welfare institutions. It provides residential care for children and destitute women and runs anganwadis, schools, hostels, vocational training centres, rehabilitation centres, women's self-help groups and primary health centres, alongside legal aid, medical camps and adult literacy work. It operates in slums in Bengaluru and in rural areas, including work with tribal communities in Magadi taluk aimed at securing housing, employment, connectivity and access to education. Among the schemes she has cited is one that trained thirty women as autorickshaw drivers.

The ashrama marked its silver jubilee in October 2000.

Recognition

Susheelamma was conferred the Padma Shri in 2026 for social work. Announcing the award she described it as a moment of collective joy shared with the ashrama's staff, members and the children in its care.

Earlier honours recorded by the ashrama include a national award for child welfare (1985), a Bangalore City Corporation award for social work and a best citizen award (1992), the Janaki Devi Bajaj Puraskar for rural entrepreneurship and a Mysore Dasara award for rural and women's development from the Karnataka Department of Women and Child Development (both 1994), the Deena Seva Ratna and Lakshmi N. Menon Literacy awards (1995), the Rani Kittur Chennamma award from the Karnataka Department of Women and Child Welfare (1998), the Rajyotsava Award for social work (2000), the Rajiv Gandhi Shiromani Award (2001), the Dr Durgabai Deshmukh Award of the Central Social Welfare Board (2012), and the Eshwaramma Puraskar and Mother Teresa Excellence Award (both 2013). The organisation also received a Dr B. R. Ambedkar Award and a national award for its handloom unit in 1991.[2][3][4][5]

Sumangali Seva Ashrama

Sumangali Seva Ashrama was founded in 1975 in Bengaluru by Padma Shri awardee Dr. S.G. Susheelamma and Smt. M. Kanthamma to serve deserted women, orphaned children and the economically weak. From its Cholanayakanahalli campus it runs children's homes, schools, a home for the aged and vocational training for destitute women.

Sumangali Seva Ashrama reports the following, on its own site: