I’m standing in Nazava Water Filter’s factory in Bandung, Indonesia, next to towering stacks of boxes packed for immediate delivery to Aceh. Inside are ceramic water filters, headed to the birthplace of Nazava, which is, once again, a disaster zone.
Nazava Founding Director Liesolette Heederik looks over the company’s emergency supplies ready for flooding survivors.
Since late 2025, the island of Sumatra in northwest Indonesia has endured extreme rainfall. Decades of illegal logging and deforestation, particularly in mountainous regions, have damaged the region’s ability to retain water in the soil, which has triggered immense flash flooding and landslides.
Across Sumatra, more than 1,000 people have been confirmed killed by the disaster, with over 5,000 injured and over a million displaced from their homes. As of this writing, entire villages remain isolated due to the extent of the damage to bridges and roads, slowing delivery of critical aid.
Severe flooding in Sumatra — Copernicus Sentinel data [2025], courtesy of the European Space Agency (ESA)
For Nazava, the horror of destruction hit home. The story of Nazava begins in Aceh, a community still recovering from one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
From Drip to Flow
In Indonesia, a majority of families provide their own drinking water, leaving households exposed to dangerously high levels of harmful bacteria, including E. coli. An estimated 25% of Indonesian children under five suffer from diarrhea, a leading cause of child mortality.
Lieselotte (Lisa) Heederik and Guido van Hofwegen founded Nazava in 2009 after finding the well water in their home in Aceh undrinkable. Combining backgrounds in sociology and engineering, they designed a simple filter, containing a core of activated carbon encased in a ceramic shell coated in colloidal silver.
They were thrilled that the original filter worked. But alas, it was too ugly. When they tried to sell it, the women in their target market refused to use it. Water, so essential to life, requires dignity. In order to be used and useful, Nazava needed to give its customers a sense of pride.
Heederik and van Hofwegen therefore launched a design discovery process with rural women and applied industrial aesthetics to guide product development.
Nazava’s team livestreams with customers via e-commerce, answering questions and speaking about the product features
The design that emerged from the collaborative process was beautiful: available in a range of colors, displayed proudly in the heart of the home. WHO-tested and certified, the filters embodied the marriage of function and form.
Having found product-market fit, Nazava’s traction grew, along with their sense of purpose. Eventually, they confronted the eternal start-up question: how to scale? And that’s when Miller Center entered the plot.
Acceleration through Accompaniment
In 2012, Heederik was moved to tears when Nazava was accepted into the Miller Center Accelerator program. Social entrepreneurship was still emerging as a concept, and Heederik felt she had finally found her people among Miller Center peers.
She recalls how her mentors told her from the very beginning: “We’re here to make you successful.” This was a serious commitment to long-term, sincere support. One of these original mentors now serves on Nazava’s board.
And the commitment came true. When they entered the accelerator, Nazava had reached around 31,000 people. Today, they have reached over 1.3 million: 40X impact growth.
The dream team at Nazava Headquarters
Through 16 programs over 14 years, Miller Center has continued to walk alongside Nazava, including making a catalytic investment from Miller Center Capital.
So when Nazava stepped up to answer an international call for aid in 2022 — continents and oceans away from Indonesia, in war-torn Ukraine — we were not surprised. We were proud.
A Test of Speed and Agility
In early 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine destroyed critical infrastructure and displaced millions of people, UNICEF issued an emergency call for safe drinking water.
Nazava responded within 14 days.
In a bold, human-centered design choice, Nazava improvised a local supply chain in real time. Food‑safe containers were sourced from a local factory in Dnipro. Filter kits were assembled in Uman by internally displaced people who were paid standard Ukrainian wages. Distribution was carried out by local Ukrainians and refugees, working with the nonprofit SaveUA, alongside partners including the Ukrainian Agri Council and the De Leeuw Kyiv Foundation.
Filters reached communities in Odessa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and surrounding regions, where access to clean water had become scarce overnight. In total, more than 30,000 Nazava filters were deployed, providing 150,000+ people with safe drinking water for at least three years.
Through an improvised local supply chain, Nazava distributed emergency water filter kits to Ukraine under attack (Photo courtesy of Nazava)
A rapid response of this nature doesn’t come out of nowhere. It is the result of over a decade spent building the system around the product, from customer awareness and empathy to delivery and engineering chops.
So when disaster struck closer to home in Indonesia, Nazava did not hesitate. They mobilized.
Aceh: Back to Where It All Began
As the extent of the flooding in Sumatra became clear, Nazava teamed up with local NGO Yayasan HAkA to get filters into communities in urgent need. Road blockages and destroyed infrastructure have made delivery difficult, but still no match for Nazava’s determination.
So far, Nazava has shipped 42,000 filters into Aceh’s isolated flood zones, responding to requests from local universities and grassroots organizations. Weekly shipments will continue as long as the need does.
In the face of so much grief and loss, Heederik is proud to share that most contributions to disaster relief have come from individuals and community groups, rather than institutions. A drop of humanity in an ocean of chaos.
Note from the author: To learn more or support Nazava’s relief work in Aceh, contact partners@nazava.com or visit this donation link.
Imagining future lives improved by clean water
