M. Sarada Menon

Mambalikalathil Sarada Menon (5 April 1923 – 5 December 2021) was an Indian psychiatrist, social worker and the founder of Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF), a Chennai-based non-governmental organization working for the rehabilitation of people afflicted with schizophrenia and other mental disorders. An Avvaiyyar Award recipient, she was a former Madras Medical Service officer and the first woman psychiatrist in India. The Government of India awarded her the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1992, for her contributions to society.

Early life and education

Menon was born in a Malayali family on 5 April 1923 as the youngest of eight children of her parents in Mangalore, a coastal town in the south Indian state of Karnataka. young Sarada moved with him for her early schooling at Good Shepherd School and later at Christ Church Anglo-Indian Higher Secondary School after which she graduated from Women's Christian College.

Graduating in medicine from Madras Medical College in 1951, she did her residency at Irwin Hospital, New Delhi (present-day Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital) before joining Madras Medical Service in 1951 to start her career at Pittapuram Mission Hospital, Andhra Pradesh. is one such organization which was started on her initiative. On the personal front, she converted one of the rooms in her residence into a shelter and later influenced the local chapter of YMCA to open palliative care centers; the organization eventually opened three such centers, at Thiruverkadu, Mahabalipuram and Anna Nagar. In 1984, she gathered a few like-minded people and founded Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF), a non-profit non governmental organization, for the rehabilitation of people afflicted with schizophrenia and other mental diseases. Over the years, SCARF has developed into a full-fledged research base and is one of the few Indian institutions recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a Collaborating Center for Mental Health Research and Training. The organization provides temporary shelters and telepsychiatric therapy, runs vocational training centers aimed at the rehabilitation of patients and manages a mobile clinic. The Government of India awarded her the civilian honor of the Padma Bhushan in 1992. In 2016, the Government of Tamil Nadu honored her again with Avvaiyyar Award.