Measuring Kindness: Siddhesh Lokare and the Classrooms That Changed the Meaning of Impact

Kindness is a word we love. Education is a word we debate. Dignity is a word we quote often in captions, sometimes in speeches, and rarely in budgets.

But every once in a while, someone appears who does not simply speak these words, they live them out loud.

In Mapabear Impact’s very first episode, Siddhesh Lokare sits down with Mapabear for a conversation that moves fluidly between the personal and the structural: childhood and helplessness, hope and hard numbers, content and consequences. Running through it all is a single idea that has come to define his work: impact is measured kindness.

This episode also marks the beginning of Mapabear Impact, a new editorial commitment that looks at parenting, childhood, and society not only through individual choices, but through the systems that shape those choices long before families ever arrive at the language of “conscious parenting.”

Because in Siddhesh’s world, the story does not begin with privilege.
It begins at the grassroots.

Watch the full episode here - Mapabear Impact | Episode 1

One Person Is Enough - and Also Not Enough

“One person is enough” is comforting.
“One person is not enough” is true.

Mapabear opens with what many people feel when they encounter Siddhesh’s work, the awe of watching one human “do so much.” Siddhesh interrupts that hero narrative almost immediately.

Where he stands today, he insists, is not proof that one person is enough. It is proof that a group of people choosing purpose over comfort can make something real.

He calls it a hive mind, a shared mentality that travels outward from a small core team, until even ordinary conversations turn unexpectedly deep, simply because people sense that someone finally has the bandwidth to listen.

It is a subtle but critical distinction for any impact ecosystem.
The goal is not a saviour.
The goal is a model that replicates.

“Kindness is not an act of God,” he says. “It’s an act of being human.”

Siddhesh accepts the affection people send his way often calling him Dev Manus, a god-sent man, but he refuses worship. Praise, he believes, belongs in the heart, not the head.

Many of these compliments, he suggests, come from vulnerability: I could have done this too… but I didn’t. His advice is simple, stop rehearsing the life you could have lived and start practising kindness in your own scale. Teach someone a skill. Empower one person near you.

That is how impact becomes communal, not performative.

Reparenting the Self, Refusing the Mask

Siddhesh speaks with rare clarity about his childhood and about being grateful that his parents never faked comfort.

Faking comfort, he says, breeds delusion. And delusion disconnects you from reality.

So he practises something radical in a culture obsessed with appearances: he refuses to wear the mask of happiness.

Helping others, he reframes, is not sainthood. It is also self-repair, a way of reparenting the broken child within. He calls it positive selfishness: the kind that allows you to be useful to others without needing applause.

From Wanting Fame to Finding Purpose

Siddhesh is honest about where he began.

“I wanted fame. I wanted validation. I wanted to be seen,” he admits.
“I didn’t even have the right definition of what a hero was.”

Early content creation was about visibility, being in front of the camera, being recognised, being valued by others when he could not yet value himself.

The shift came when his lens moved away from himself and toward people whose stories were never designed to trend.

“I realised a hero isn’t someone who knows they’re a hero,” he says.
“A hero is someone who’s just doing what needs to be done.”

That realisation marked the beginning of a deeper journey rooted in documentation, listening, and eventually, action.

When Classrooms Replace Campaigns

While travelling through villages and remote communities across Maharashtra, Siddhesh found himself inside classrooms that barely resembled schools.

On one of the earliest days of what would later become Mission 30303, he trekked nearly two kilometres to reach a school in Dargawadi.

“The floor was slippery with fungus. It wasn’t safe to walk,” he recalls.
“The teachers told me children weren’t even allowed to touch the building walls because it was dangerous.”

That moment changed everything.

“I realised I couldn’t fake this mission anymore,” he says.
“I didn’t need to add layers of helplessness. I didn’t need to try hard to show anything. Reality was already so rough.”

Children Who Risk Their Lives to Learn

Across rural Maharashtra, Siddhesh encountered stories that revealed the invisible cost of education in India.

Children crossing 40-foot-deep backwaters on makeshift thermal-coal boats just to attend school. Children walking barefoot for three to four kilometres in extreme heat because learning mattered more than comfort. Children choosing classrooms because they trusted their teachers not because the system made it easy.

“These kids can die, and nobody would even know,” Siddhesh says bluntly.
“That’s how fragile access to education still is.”

And yet, in these same spaces, he heard dreams spoken without irony - of becoming teachers, pilots, doctors, IPS officers. Dreams that forced him to redefine success itself.

“Success isn’t something you touch,” he reflects.
“It’s something you feel. For me, success will be when I see these children years later - educated, independent, employed, and living with dignity.”

The Right to Education: A Promise vs Reality

India’s Right to Education (RTE), enshrined under Article 21A of the Constitution, guarantees free and compulsory education for children between six and fourteen. On paper, it is a powerful promise.

“The very irony of the fact is that Right to Education is not something that is promised,” Siddhesh says.
“It’s something that is written in our books of law.”

On the ground, he saw something else entirely.

“Most of these children don’t even know that RTE exists,” he says.
“It’s written in law, but invisible in their lives.”

He points to the gap between policy and practice, schools that are not supposed to charge fees but do so indirectly, while others quietly offer free education despite financial strain. He also highlights Article 47, which mandates improved nutrition and public health, and the POSHAN scheme, designed to provide meals through government schools.

“For many children, education is not the priority, survival is,” he explains.
“If food is not assured, learning is not even their priority.”

This is where Siddhesh’s work intersects with parenting, psychology, and policy.

“It’s very easy to talk about child psychology,” he says.
“But how do you understand a child without understanding hunger, fear, and neglect?”

Teachers: The Quiet Backbone of the System

If children are the heart of Siddhesh’s journey, teachers are its spine.

“Every great school we visited was led by an extraordinary teacher,” he says.
“Their values become benchmarks for children.”

He speaks of schools that run 365 days a year. Of teachers who have surrendered their lives to education. Of classrooms where children solve complex math problems that even urban schools struggle with - not because of privilege, but because of discipline and belief.

“You should never underestimate the power of teachers in India,” Siddhesh insists.
“They are holding the system together.”

When Parents Disappear, Society Pays

Some of the hardest truths Siddhesh shares come not from remote villages, but from urban slums.

He recalls meeting children whose parents had given up entirely often due to addiction, poverty, or trauma. In one case, a father battling substance abuse no longer remembered his child’s real name.

“When parents give up on parenthood entirely,” Siddhesh warns,
“society pays the price later. These children are not born dangerous, they are made invisible.”

It is a stark observation rooted in lived experience.

“These are the children who grow up without guidance, without care, without dignity,” he says.
“And then we act surprised when society breaks.”

Education Beyond Textbooks: Periods, Dignity, and Dialogue

Siddhesh’s work extends far beyond classrooms.

In Nithari, a place etched into India’s collective memory for violence and neglect, he and his team organised First Period Parties for young girls. These gatherings combined sex education, menstrual health awareness, and celebration.

“We decorated the halls with pads, cups, everything,” he explains.
“We invited educators, talked openly, cut cake. We normalised something that had always been treated as shameful.”

For Siddhesh, this too is education - not optional, not secondary, but foundational.

Measuring Kindness, Not Performing It

What distinguishes Siddhesh’s work is his insistence on measurable impact.

“Kindness equals impact,” he says.
“And impact must be measured.”

His most ambitious effort so far, Mission 30303 - involved visiting 30 remote schools in 30 days and raising ₹3 crore to rebuild infrastructure, support teachers, and restore dignity to learning spaces.

The donations came from everywhere: children donating their savings, couples redirecting wedding funds, families naming children after him, teachers collecting contributions from students, brands and philanthropists stepping forward quietly.

“These people whom we empowered came back and donated,” Siddhesh says.
“That’s when I realised this isn’t about help, it’s about people taking responsibility for each other.”

Saku, Sunflowers, and the Power of Symbols

Every journey needs symbols.

For Siddhesh, they are Saku, the scooter that carried him over 5,000 kilometres, and the sunflower.

“Saku never stopped,” he smiles.
“Even on the worst roads.”

The sunflower represents consistency, resilience, and the act of turning toward light no matter how harsh the environment.

“It carried the energy of the mission,” he says simply.

What Comes Next

Siddhesh is not slowing down.

He speaks of scaling impact to ₹30 crore, or even ₹300 crore. Of building innovation-led schools inspired by India’s pre-colonial Gurukul systems. Of doing whatever it takes to ensure that no child is denied education.

“The idea is to create a framework where people start empowering each other,” he says.
“I want to build systems where people don’t need me anymore.”

Why This Story Begins Here

This is why Mapabear Impact begins here.

Not with perfection, but with honesty. Not with spectacle, but with sustained effort.

Siddhesh Lokare’s journey reminds us that real impact is built quietly, through choices made again and again. To listen more carefully. To stay longer. To act, even when no one is watching.

For parents, educators, and citizens, this story is not a conclusion.
It is an invitation.

To notice what is missing.
To care a little deeper.
And to remember that kindness, when practised with intention, can slowly change the shape of a future.

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Watch here - Mapabear Impact | Episode 1
Because kindness, when measured, becomes transformation.