PLAYPUMPS: HOW THEY WORK

While children have fun spinning on the PlayPump merry-go-round (see 1 in the diagram), clean water is pumped (2) from underground (3) into a 2,500-liter tank (4), standing seven meters above the ground.

A simple tap (5) makes it easy for adults and children to draw water. Excess water is diverted from the storage tank back down into the borehole (6).

The water storage tank (7) provides a rare opportunity to advertise in outlaying communities. All four sides of the tank are leased as billboards, with two sides for consumer advertising and the other two sides for health and educational messages. The revenue generated by this unique model pays for pump maintenance.

The design of the PlayPump water system makes it highly effective, easy to operate and very economical, keeping costs and maintenance to an absolute minimum. The pump is capable of producing up to 1,400 liters of water per hour.

Benefits of the PlayPump Water System

Access to clean drinking water is the critical first step for addressing a wide range of health, education, gender and economic issues. With access, children and their families live longer, healthier lives.

While the health benefits of a clean water supply are critical, other benefits flow from the PlayPump water system as well:

• Children play and stay in school instead of hauling water. While they are having fun, children are learning self-confidence and interpersonal skills. Play stimulates bodies and minds.
  
• Women benefit too, as they no longer risk injury from transporting heavy containers of water over great distances, and they can use the time saved to better care for their children and start small enterprises that bring additional food and income to their families.
  
• Public health messages on PlayPump billboards promote healthy behaviors that limit the spread of HIV/AIDS in rural Africa. Also, in order for HIV infected people to remain healthy as long as possible, adequate water supplies and sanitary facilities are of the utmost importance. Clean water is needed to take medication.
  

In addition to helping to provide access to clean water, the PlayPump water system is uniquely sustainable and creates economic benefits.

The 2,500-liter water tank provides a rare advertising opportunity in rural communities. On each PlayPump storage tank, Roundabout Outdoor leases two sides of the raised storage tank for consumer advertising and leases the other two sides for public health messaging.

ENGINEERS WITHOUTH BORDERS: PlayPump International

The PlayPump systems are innovative, sustainable, patented water pumps powered by children at play. Installed near schools, the PlayPump system doubles as a water pump and a merry-go-round for children. The PlayPump system also provides one of the only ways to reach rural and urban communities with potentially life saving public health message.

THE MISSION
Operating with a slogan of “Kids Play, Water Pumps”, PlayPumps International’s mission is help improve the lives of children and their families by providing easy access to clean drinking water, enhancing public health, and offering play equipment to millions across Africa. PlayPumps International is a Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) registered in South Africa and a sister of three NGOs in the United States. PlayPumps intend to carry out their mission by installing 4,000 PlayPump water systems in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa by 2010. This will bring the benefits of clean water to up to 10 million people. More than 1000 PlayPump systems have already been donated to communities in South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique, and Zambia.

CONTRIBUTORS
There are more than 700 PlayPumps in sub-Saharan Africa, providing clean drinking water to more than one million impoverished people. On September 20, 2006, at the Clinton Global Initiative, First Lady Laura Bush announced a $16.4 million public-private partnership to install more PlayPumps – the beginning of an effort to reach the goal of 4,000 pumps by 2010 to provide water to 10 million Africans. The announcement includes $10 million from the U.S. government, $5 million from the Case Foundation, and $1.4 million from the MCJ Foundation.

THE CREATOR
In 1989, South African advertising executive Trevor Field wasn’t looking to start a charity. One day, during a visit to an agricultural fair outside of Johannesburg, he stumbled across a curious invention; an irrigation system powered by a merry-go-round. As children ran to spin it, they powered a pump that pulled gallon after gallon of water from the ground. He already knew that about as many people die from bad water in South Africa as from HIV or malaria, and most who do are under the age of five.

Trevor Field figured that paying for such a pumping system would be a snap because he could convince a company to slap an ad on the side of the tank. Today 18 years later, Field’s accidental advocacy campaign called PlayPumps has swelled into an international aid organization with offices on both sides of the Atlantic. It has built more than 900 such water systems at a cost of $14,000 each, serving roughly 2 million people in four countries.

Trevor Field’s bright idea to create funding for the PlayPumps is to sell advertising spaces on the PlayPump tower. This is expected generate a lot of money that will be donated for the construction of the PlayPumps.