Sindhutai Sapkal is an Indian social worker known for raising over 1050 orphan children. Born into poverty, she was forced to quit school after 4th grade and married young. After facing abandonment while pregnant, she began begging on trains and adopting orphan children she met. She has since devoted her life to caring for orphaned children, and is now supported by over 1000 grandchildren. Many of the children she raised have become educated professionals. She continues her work of caring for orphans and using award money to build homes for children.

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SINDHUTAI SAPKAL
Social Worker, Mother of Orphan Children
Sindhutai Sapkal also known as Mother of Orphans is an Indian social worker and activist known
particularly for her work for raising orphan children. She was born on 14 November 1948 at Pimpri
Meghe village in Wardha district Maharashtra. Abject poverty, family responsibilities and an early
marriage forced her to quit formal education after she passed 4th grade.
At the age of 10, she got married & bore 3 sons by the time she turned 20. Initially she put up a
successful agitation against a local strongman who was fleecing the villagers on collection of dried cow
dung used as fuel and selling it in collusion with forest department, without paying anything to the
villagers. Her agitation brought the district collector to her village and on realising she was right, he
passed an order which the strongman did not like. Stung by the insult at the hands of a poor woman, he
managed to convince her husband to abandon her when she was almost 9 months of her pregnancy.
She gave birth to a baby girl on 14 October 1973 in a cow shelter outside their house that night, all
by herself and walked few kilometers away to her mother's place, her mother refused to shelter her.
She had to set aside the thought of suicide and started begging on railway platforms for food. In the
process, she realised that there are so many children abandoned by their parents and she adopted them
as her own and started begging even more vigorously to feed them. She decided to become a mother to
anyone and everyone who came across to her as an orphan. She later donated her biological child to the
Shrimant Dagdu Sheth Halwai Trust, Pune, only to eliminate the feeling of partiality between her
daughter and the adopted ones.
She has devoted her entire life for orphans. As a result she is fondly called 'Mai'(mother). She has
nurtured over 1050 orphaned children. As of today, she has a grand family of 207 son-in-laws, 36
daughter-in-laws and over 1000 grandchildren. She still continues to fight for the next meal. Many of the
children whom she adopted are well-educated lawyers and doctors, and some, including her biological
daughter, are running their own independent orphanages. One of her children is doing a PhD on her life.
She has been honored with over 273 awards for her dedication and work. She used award money to buy
land to make a home for her children. Construction has started and she is still looking for more help
from the world. Sanmati Bal Niketan is being built in Manjari locality at Hadapsar, Pune where over 300
children will reside.
AHFCL salutes the spirit of Sindhutai and her courage to believe that she could be a mother to
every orphan that came her way.