About Us
Who We Are
India Water Project is a 501(c)(3) non profit organization dedicated to providing reliable clean water to villages and communities in rural India who suffer needlessly from a lack of access to clean water and sanitation.
The crisis of water on our planet is real, and especially affects women, children, and farmers. Lack of clean, safe water limits education, marginalizes food production, perpetuates the cycle of poverty, and leads to real health problems and/or death. India ranks 120 out of 122 countries on the World Health Organization’s Clean Water Index. This is a crisis that Water Project, Inc seeks to ameliorate. Our goal is to serve and support and we seek your collaboration in this effort!
India Water Project is supported in this effort through collaborating with Waterlife India, a social business enterprise that has developed a sustainable and environmentally friendly model – the Water ATM – in getting communities in dire need access to clean safe drinking water.
Our Story
Our approach
Our Mission
Our mission is to make sure all young people and children get all the support they need, when they need it, no matter what it is.
Our Vision
We want to build a world where no child or youth feels alone and gets every possible help they need as soon as possible.
Our Board of Directors
Randa Chehab
Executive Director
Randa Chehab graduated from Smith college with a BA in Developmental Psychology, and a BA in medicine from UW-Madison as a Physician Assistant. She received her Masters in Global Health from Northwestern University. She is a long time student and teacher of yoga, owning a studio in Bozeman MT from 2001-2017. She began yearly trips to India in 2006, and has taught internationally since 2009. In 2011, she was introduced to her mentor, Eve Ensler in India during the V-DAY’s ONE BILLION RISING global campaign to end violence against women and girls. Randa moved to South India in 2019 to open a homestay and yoga centre, focusing on implementing a yoga program to help address women’s and girls trauma. The double disasters of the 2020 COVID pandemic and Cyclone AMPHAN devastated the NGO she partnered with. When asked what they needed in the days following the cyclone, they responded with a desperate need for water–Water ATMs.
Randa learned quickly the importance of this basic need and how interconnected water is in ending violence against women and girls, and how the most marginalized will bear the brunt of climate-induced disasters.
Laura Ziemer
Director
Laura Ziemer, Senior Counsel and Water Policy Advisor, Trout Unlimited. Laura Ziemer established Trout Unlimited’s (TU’s) Montana Water Project office in 1998, beginning TU’s flow restoration efforts, and subsequently helping to grow TU’s water work to nine states (MT, CO, WY, ID, UT, NM, OR, WA, and CA). TU’s Western Water and Habitat Program is now TU’s largest conservation initiative, which works to restore and maintain streamflows and watersheds for healthy coldwater fisheries. She currently serves as TU’s Senior Counsel and Water Policy Advisor.
In Montana since 1998, Ms. Ziemer has expanded TU’s water leasing program, protected flows on the Bitterroot River, initiated a successful drought response plan on the Blackfoot River, and obtained favorable rulings from the Montana Supreme Court recognizing instream flow rights under the prior appropriation doctrine (Bean Lake III, Sept. 2002), and integrating ground and surface water management (TU v. DNRC, April 2006). Ms. Ziemer has broadened Montana laws to protect and restore flows and watersheds in ten, successive state legislative sessions, including pioneering legislation fully integrating ground and surface water management in Montana. Nationally, she has helped establish new watershed restoration authorities in the 2008, 2014, and 2018 Farm Bills, the 2014 Water Resources and Reform Development Act, and the 2020 amendments to the Bureau of Reclamation’s WaterSMART authority.
Ms. Ziemer served as a judicial clerk to Honorable Barabara J. Rothstein of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. She is a 1990 graduate of the University of Michigan, graduating cum laude from the Law School while earning a Master’s Degree in Resource Ecology with honors from the School of Natural Resources.
Dr. Rajkumar Reghunathan (MBBS)
Director
Dr. Rajkumar Rajkumar Reghunathan is a medical doctor, Siddha Vaidyan, and Indian medical alchemist with special interest in longevity. He is extremely happy that the way forward for him was open to him earlier in life and was guided in that journey by able teachers, starting with his parents. He developed an interest in Ayurveda and Siddha Vaidya while still a medical student. After graduating from the University of Kerala and obtaining his license, he practiced medicine as the lone doctor for an atoll in Maldives with 250 populated, sparsely populated and deserted islands. During his spare time, he trained further in Siddha Vaidya, the ancient medicine of south India with Dr. Harichandran who was a doctor, an herbal pharmacist, philosopher and martial arts expert all rolled into one. After Maldives, he traveled to Europe and lived in the USA till his return back to India in 2005. He was and is delighted to educate and train students in Siddha Vaidya where ever he lived. He was interested in philosophy right from childhood, reading books, meeting learned teachers and listening in on conversations and debates in philosophy. His interest are Kaya Kalpa the longevity longevity practice of ancient India and medical alchemy with special interests in longevity and in treating difficult medical conditions. He spends time in the Nilgiri mountains and in Trivandrum where he helps run an integrated medical clinic.
Dave Plomin
Director
Dave Plomin leads Plante Moran’s manufacturing operations consulting practice focusing on
manufacturing network and plant floor optimization initiatives. Dave has more than 30 years of experience streamlining and transforming business processes and operations, driving business change,
maximizing profitability and ensuring that technology investments deliver results. He provides solutions and leadership for critical initiatives, such as technology acceptance, operational change, performance improvement, and merger and acquisition integration. Over the course of his career, Dave has worked in a wide range of industries including metal processing, construction supplies, heavy industry, automotive, distribution, health care, public sector, and non-profits. Around the office, colleagues know Dave for his
willingness to help. Dave is often asked to speak to association conferences and lead webinars on
business strategy topics such as Industry 4.0, operational due diligence, and succession planning. He studied chemistry at Knox College and received an MBA from Governors State University. When not in
the office, he keeps busy playing basketball, riding his bike around the city, and attending neighborhood
festivals in the summer.
Maury Stephan
Director
Maury Stephan has a BA degree in Psychology from Dartmouth College. After two years working for a bank, she returned to her passion of healing and helping people, embarking on a career in Massage Therapy. She started a practice first in Berkeley,CA, and after a move across the country, another in Suwanee,GA. She has three socially aware children. She has held many volunteer positions including promoting health and wellness within the schools, serving on the boards of local and district PTA. as well as serving as treasurer of the High School Cross Country team. She is currently studying herbal medicine for women, to help women heal their bodies naturally.
Thomas Ndindjock
Thomas Ndindjock is a Cameroonian. He holds a bachelor’s degree in public relations at the Advanced School of Mass Communication and a diploma in Mentorship at the Apostolic Bible College. He has been trained in risk management and financing development with the World Bank.
He is a consultant and a non-profit manager, with many years of experience in corporate communication, program management, resource mobilization and journalism. He worked for non-profit, christian organizations and public institutions for many years as a communication and development manager, program manager, public relations officer, board member and volunteer. He contributed in setting up many associations with social and humanitarian impact in Cameroon.
As a committed christian and evangelist, Thomas has been involved in leadership and church management for many years. He is a former christian youth leader. He speaks French with a working knowledge of English and Spanish. He likes listening to christian music, angling, traveling and walking in the forest.
Lindsay Moran
Director
Lindsay Moran is Head of Communications for the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a Washington DC and London-based non-profit that seeks to disrupt the architecture of online hate and disinformation. Prior to joining CCDH, Ms. Moran led communications for the Environmental Investigation Agency, an international NGO that uses undercover investigations in its mission to expose environmental crime. Ms. Moran is a graduate of Harvard College and Columbia University. She has lectured at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard College, Yale College, the American Enterprise Institute, University of Virginia, American University, Columbia University and various other colleges and universities. She lives in Maryland with her two sons and two dogs.
Lars-Erik Olsson
Director
Lars-Erik Olsson (Leo), born 1961 in Sweden, has a PhD in Sociology and is an Associate Professor in Social Work. Leo has been manager within the academic world for more than 15 years. He has been educating and researched mainly in the field of organization and leadership, but also made studies of human vulnerability. Leo has taught and supervised individuals and groups and lectured for 20 years. In addition, he has been a manager and leader for 15 years and his own experience of both operational and strategic change work. In recent years, he has worked as a consultant within his own company Kreasoma, as a supervisor for working groups in social work but also worked with refugees within the Church of Sweden. He has also been the head of a research unit at Ersta Sköndal University and works at a shelter for battered women. He works with HIV prevention and empowerment for LGBTQI people and sex workers in Rwanda and Uganda. Leo is also a co-owner of an Indian restaurant and hotel in the southern state of Kerala.
Donate Today
Every dollar you donate can provide over a month of clean, safe water to an underserved family in India.