A good education and targeted professional incentives, along with developing strong ties to their community would encourage the children to pursue higher education in areas most needed by the community; and later, provide much-needed professional services to their own local communities.


With offices in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A and New Delhi, India, HEF has supporters from around the world who volunteer their time in various HEF projects.


HEF is exempt from U.S federal income taxes under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Your contributions are tax-deductible under U.S. tax regulations.

Jayant Hardikar


Jayant, the founder of the Himalayan Education Foundation, is a Global Program Manager in the technology industry and an independent business consultant in the Renewable Energy sector.
He helps companies set up operations in India through strategic business consulting and building Indo-US business partnerships. He has spent 20 years in the environmental consulting and high-tech fields where he has managed large scale engineering projects and complex partnerships between large companies to deliver revenue generating products to market. Born and raised in India, Jayant came to the United States to obtain a Master of Science degree in Environmental Science. He is also a guitarist and singer in a Boston based band.


Jayant has a passion for understanding the perspectives of people with different cultural backgrounds and situations. He also has a strong fundamental belief in the unity of our existence.

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Vikram Chhachhi


Of his 20 years’ of experience, Vikram has spent the past eleven years in Executive Search and Corporate Recruiting. He is a Director with Accord Group India – a member firm of AltoPartners Executive Search Worldwide – and is based out of Gurgaon/ New Delhi.
His area of expertise is in assisting clients in the Consumer, Retail Services, Telecom, Technology and Media industries involving business and functional leadership hiring and consulting. Prior to this, Vikram has spent many years in leadership roles of U.S-based and India-based executive search companies. Before Vikram joined the Executive Search profession, he was a senior editor with the leading business fortnightly, Business Today. Vikram is a graduate in Computer Science from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.


Vikram likes to travel and gain a deeper understanding of local communities, their ecosystems and issues and how those could be resolved on a sustainable basis. His wider interests are Education, Healthcare and Wellness, along with being a devoted long-distance runner and a cross-genre music buff.

 

Divya Vohra


Divya is the Communications Manager for a non-profit organization based in Cambridge, MA, USA that is working to accelerate research for rare neuro-degenerative diseases. 
She has experience in bridging the divide between the non-profit and for-profit sectors, having worked with some of New England's top social enterprise leaders, and continues to search for innovative ways for resource-constrained organizations to better serve their constituents.

Divya has a strong interest in the health and education challenges facing marginalized youth.  She built and led the peer education program at Destiny House, Rhode Island's first domestic violence agency for minority youth, and now serves on Destiny House's board of directors.  She also served as a community liaison in the RI Department of Health's Community Planning Group on HIV Prevention, where she led workshops and outreach efforts for the state's high-risk youth population.

 

The Himalayan Education Foundation aims to provide a solid foundation for resolving the fundamental needs of the people of the remote villages of the Indian Himalayas through strategic and valuable educational incentives.

Kathleen Bollerud


Kathleen Bollerud is a psychologist and independent consultant, specializing in executive coaching and leadership development. 
Over the last 25 years, she has worked with a  diverse clientele representing a wide variety of public and private organizations in distribution, retail, finance, health care, insurance, manufacturing, education, technology and not-for profits.  She is currently an executive coach for Duke Corporate Education (Fuqua School of Business), a leading provider of executive education programs worldwide.  


She has been a teaching fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Medical School and an Adjunct Faculty at Antioch Graduate School. She is a recipient of the Cleveland International Fellowship from Stockholm, Sweden.   Active in community affairs, she has worked with United Way, Monadnock Music, the American Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Network and is currently a Trustee of Historic Harrisville, a National Historic Landmark site. 

 

Monica Lehner


Monica received her BA from Wheaton College in a dual degree in Art History and Religion in 1984 and received her MA from the School
for International Training in International/Intercultural Administration in 1990.  She subsequently worked in the US, Kenya, and Italy in the non-profit education sector in a variety of capacities. For three years she chaired the board of the Well School in Peterborough, NH. She headed the Well School’s fundraising committee and started the school’s annual International Cultural Festival.  As a community activist, she  played an instrumental role in conserving ~1,000 acres in Greenfield, NH and for the past four years has co-chaired the MacDowell Colony’s (the oldest artist colony in the United States) Annual NH Benefit Committee, with the intent of broadening the base of NH support for the Colony.  Monica is on the Advisory Council of Giving Monadnock, a southern New Hampshire based non-profit that supports all non-profits of the Monadnock region through board governance and fundraising training.