Late Dr. Adelheid Hueffer

Ashadeep Association is a charitable organisation founded by the Late Dr. Adelheid Hueffer in 1976. Dr. Adelheid Hueffer was born on 26th October 1915 in Muenster, in Germany.
She was the eldest of three children. "Heidi" as she was called by her family, grew up in a well-to-do and traditional catholic family. At the age of 10, she displayed tendencies which were not in tune with the normally high standards of the family.
Whenever her mother took her to the family weekend house, where many prominent ladies used to gather, Heidi regularly disappeared and was found enjoying herself in the stables and barns of the farm nearby.
There she developed interest in social work, which became very useful for future life in rural India namely Odisha. After graduating from high school in 1935, she first studied social work and then medicine, which she completed in 1945.
For a short time, she practiced as a Doctor in Germany, in the St. Franziskus Hospital in her hometown in Muenster. She is still well remembered and appreciated by the members, who run the Hospital.
In 1951, apparently under the inspiration of the Bishop of Muenster, she went to Rhodesia for medical work among the poor. In 1952, Bishop Westermann from Odisha succeeded in persuading her to come to India to work in his diocese Kalunga in Odisha.

• Birth: 26^th October 1915
• Death: 1^st July 2000