In a country where exam scores often matter more than emotional growth, Ananya Panday is flipping the script. The young Bollywood star is making waves, not with a movie this time, but by launching a ‘Kindness Curriculum’ aimed at school kids across India. And honestly? It’s just what we need right now.
Through her digital initiative So Positive, Ananya has teamed up with the arts-based education nonprofit Slam Out Loud to bring emotional and social learning to over 2.5 lakh children. Yes, that’s a quarter of a million kids learning how to be kinder, more empathetic humans—with a little help from poetry, storytelling, and art.
What Is the Kindness Curriculum All About?
Let’s break it down. This isn’t your usual textbook-driven classroom lesson. The Kindness Curriculum is all about teaching children essential life skills through creativity. Think visual arts, spoken word poetry, and storytelling—all tailored to help kids express themselves, understand others, and navigate the emotional rollercoaster that growing up often is.
Ananya herself plays a visible role in the modules, guiding kids through her own personal experiences with empathy and self-awareness. The idea is to make emotional intelligence feel real and relatable—especially in an age where young minds are growing up in a hyper-digital, sometimes overwhelming world.
This isn’t just a celebrity-endorsed campaign. It’s an actual, thoughtfully designed curriculum being rolled out on-ground in classrooms and online across the country.
Why Kindness? Why Now?
Let’s face it—empathy and emotional awareness aren’t things most of us were taught in school. But these are the tools that shape how we interact with the world and deal with challenges, both online and offline.
Ananya puts it beautifully:
“Kindness has always been at the heart of everything we do at So Positive. It’s something I deeply believe in—not just as an idea, but as a way of life. I truly feel that if we can instil kindness in kids from a young age, it becomes second nature to them as they grow up.”
She’s not wrong. From online bullying to the pressure of academic performance, today’s kids face a unique set of emotional challenges. Learning how to navigate all that with kindness and confidence isn’t just useful—it’s essential.
How It’s Being Rolled Out
The Kindness Curriculum is being launched through Slam Out Loud’s Jijivisha Fellowship and Arts for All initiatives. These programs already work closely with under-resourced schools and communities, making sure the modules reach those who need them the most.
But here’s the cool part: the entire curriculum is also available digitally—via So Positive’s YouTube channel—so parents, educators, and even kids at home can access the content freely. And to make sure this reaches classrooms at scale, the team is also working to host the curriculum on the DIKSHA Portal, the Government of India’s digital learning platform.
In other words, this isn’t just a boutique social campaign—it’s a nationwide initiative with serious intent.
Building a Kinder Generation
What makes this initiative stand out is that it goes beyond slogans or awareness. It gives kids the language and tools to talk about their feelings, listen better, and build healthier connections—with themselves and with others.
The fact that a mainstream actor like Ananya is not just supporting but actively participating in such a meaningful project adds a strong layer of relatability and influence. She’s not preaching from the sidelines—she’s walking the talk.
And given the way digital culture is shaping young minds, that influence matters.
Jay-Ho! Star Sense
At a time when classrooms are still catching up with the emotional needs of Gen Alpha and Gen Z, this initiative feels like a breath of fresh air. The Kindness Curriculum isn’t about being soft or passive—it’s about building emotional resilience, self-awareness, and genuine human connection.
By making kindness a skill, not just a buzzword, Ananya Panday and Slam Out Loud are giving us something to be hopeful about: a future generation that values compassion just as much as competition.
Now that’s what we call a real impact project.
Stay tuned with Jay-Ho! for more stories that celebrate celebrity-led change, positive pop culture, and everything that makes desi entertainment more meaningful.
