According to Sarang Bobade, Co-Founder & CEO at Donatekart, kindness is most powerful when it’s put into action. 

Early on, this social entrepreneur realised that you cannot hope to change the world unless you step out of your comfort zone. And from that noble thought, Donatekart, one of India’s leading crowdfunding platforms that raises donations in kind, took shape. 

While Sarang credits many mentors whose lives inspired the Donatekart idea, the most instrumental among them was Baba Amte.

He explains, “I grew up in Chandrapur, Maharashtra. Most of my summer vacations were spent in my village, Chandankheda. Growing up in a village shows you the realities that exist on the ground.” 

The state’s Vidarbha belt, in particular, is home to various tribes; healthcare, access to resources, and urban luxuries are a distant dream in most of these pockets. But, as Sarang was quick to note, where there are challenges, there are bound to be changemakers.

“The region has been home to so many revolutionaries who’ve worked for the communities here,” he shares, going on to cite the examples of Dr Abhay and Rani Bang, who revolutionised rural healthcare in Gadchiroli, Padma Shri Sindhutai Sapkal who raised orphaned children, and Baba Amte (Murlidhar Devidas Amte) who started Anandwan, a self-sustaining community for leprosy patients and the physically disabled.

And in Baba Amte, Sarang found his hero. 

When greatness inspires greatness 

When Sarang was in Class 8, Baba Amte passed away. This was in 2008. 

Sarang’s father told him a story. In the 1940s, people who had leprosy were treated as outcasts. There........

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