The UK”s leading magazine for Process Engineers is supporting WaterAid
When clean water comes at the turn of a tap it’s easy to take it for granted, but for 884 million of the world’s poorest people finding water is a daily struggle. For these communities, there is no choice but to walk miles to collect water from unprotected sources such as open wells, muddy dugouts or streams. Along with poor sanitation, this dirty, unsafe water causes diseases that kill 4000 children every day – more than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.
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International charity WaterAid uses a wide range of technologies and approaches which aim to help poor communities in Africa, Asia and the Pacific region to set up safe water supplies. All the technologies used are low cost, appropriate to the local financial and geographical conditions and within the technical capacity of the community to operate and maintain, ensuring that projects can be sustained.
One such approach is the rope pump, a simple technology that can be constructed from recycled parts like bicycle wheels, scrap metal and plastic. The rope pump can be fixed locally, quickly and cheaply – the most common problem is a broken rope, and even in the remotest areas rope is fairly cheap and easy to find.
WaterAid’s partners train and support local people like Martin Ouedraogo, who has a small rope pump factory in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, to manufacture and maintain the pumps. “This rope pump is very good technology and it’s easy to make locally, using local materials,” says Martin. “I am very, very happy to contribute to providing water services to communities. Now with the rope pump they have access to safe water.”
The arrival of the rope pump has transformed life for the community of Bidiga Nattinga.
“In the past I spent a lot of time fetching water,” explains Fatma Lengane, a widow living in the village. “The well with a rope pump is a very good thing for me and my community because we used to have an open well with a lot of impurities – children, adults, old people, everybody got sick. The quality of the water is better with this well.”
Access to clean water helps communities achieve a better quality of life and escape the cycle of poverty. To find out more about the technologies used by WaterAid or to make a donation to help the charity reach more people with sustainable solutions like the rope pump go to www.wateraid.org
