Prabhaben Shah

Prabhaben Sobhaghchand Shah was a social worker from Daman who led its Mahila Mandal, a women’s association, and worked for decades to help women in the region. She was named for the Padma Shri in 2022 in the field of social work, from Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu ^[1].

Inspired by Gandhi

Prabhaben was born on 20 February 1930 ^[2]. At 15, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, she took to sleeping on sacking and spinning on the charkha for eight hours a day during her school years ^[2]. During the wars of 1965 and 1971 she served on defence committees, and with other women knitted sweaters for soldiers at the front ^[2].

Work for women

She was a founding member of the Daman District Multipurpose Cooperative Society, set up in 1964, whose fair-price shops still run ^[2]. From 1969 she ran a library and nursery schools in English and Gujarati, along with sewing classes, literacy camps and workshops for women ^[2]. She raised money for a building for the Mahila Mandal in Daman, set up a canteen at a government hospital and an employment bureau for low-income women, and encouraged women in nearby villages to form their own groups ^[2]. She also helped flood victims in Gujarat through a clothing bank in Surat ^[2].

She served on the board of the Gujarat State Social Welfare Advisory Board from 1992 to 1994 ^[2].

Prabhaben died at the government hospital in Daman in January 2023, aged 92 ^[3].