Our Founder, Jay Hardikar

The Himalayan Education Foundation was founded by Jay Hardikar in 2008. 

With just a backpack, Jay returned to India, the country of his birth, to get to know India beyond the company town where he was raised.

He traveled to the high Himalaya in the northeast state of Uttarakhand where he stopped in the mountain village of Chakouri. There he met a carpenter who invited him to his home to share a cup of chai. The carpenter told him about a small school that was providing quality education for local children.

“I wish my two little children could go to that school,” he lamented. He could not afford to pay $15 a month. 

Jay learned from the carpenter about the challenges facing the villagers in these mountain communities, specifically, the lack of basic education for children.

“The carpenter opened his hearth and his heart to me, inspiring an organization that now partners closely with leaders in two Himalayan communities.” 

The carpenter was referring to Himalaya Public School. In 1999 Devbala Karki, after graduating from university, and, supported by her family, left a secure life in Nainital, to start the Himalaya Public School (now known as Himalaya Inter College) in the mountain village of Chakouri. 

What started with three children in a makeshift, donated cowshed, grew year after year into a school that today provides an outstanding academic education for the children of the Kumoun Region of the Himalayas.

Visiting the school for the first time in 2008, Jay encountered eager, hopeful, bright children, despite the lack of basic resources, school materials, electricity, and hot water.

“I had a strong desire to help the carpenter’s children, which then quickly evolved into a desire to help the entire community. With this inspiration I founded Himalayan Education Foundation (HEF)”

Over the years, in partnership with talented local leaders, the Himalayan Education Foundation is scaling deep, developing sustainable working relationships so that the children and families of the mountain villages receive a quality education. 

Through education HEF supports rural mountain communities to become sustainable – a real challenge in a region facing economic, environmental and social threats.

Today at HEF, we keep Jay’s dream alive. We make a difference through lifelong education, not just academic education but also community education across a broad spectrum of needs and interests of the communities within which we work.