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TACTICS OF HOPE CASE STUDY 6 – SAVING LIVES BY PUMPING WATER AND HAVING FUN
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The PlayPump® water system is an ingenuous, simple, low-tech solution for developing countries, which lose thousands of lives every day from lack of clean water. Roundabout Outdoor, and its non-profit partner, PlayPumps International (www.Playpumps.org), has adapted a water pump technology that doubles as a merry-go-round. Children play and turn the merry-go-round, pumping water from deep in the ground to a storage container that can be used for billboard advertising to generate revenue. The technology is replicable, as Playpumps International plans to scale its operations with 4,000 new pumps to reach 10 million people by 2010.
• 950 PlayPumps have been installed in four African countries to date; 700 of these have been in South Africa alone.
• Over 2 million people can access free clean drinking water that could not before.
• Hundreds of jobs have been created through the PlayPump maintenance program.
• PlayPumps International plans to help install 4,000 pumps by 2010, in 10 African countries, and at a cost of $60 million.
• PlayPumps International has raised $20 million to date for this initiative.
• 1 PlayPump costs $14,000 and includes equipment, installation, water quality testing, community liaison and 10 years of maintenance.
• President Bill Clinton, First Lady Laura Bush, and platinum-selling rapper Jay-Z have all endorsed PlayPumps in African communities.
The PlayPump® Water System – How It Works
While children have fun (1) spinning on the PlayPump merry-go-round, clean water (2) is pumped 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. Capable of producing up to 1,400 liters of water per hour at 16 rpm from a depth of 40 meters, it is effective up to a depth of 100 meters. Each identified borehole used for a PlayPump system undergoes a series of geo-hydrological tests as well as water chemical tests to ensure that the water source is suitable for human consumption. A typical hand pump installation cannot compete with the PlayPump system's delivery rate or quality.
The two most important ways that individuals support PlayPumps is to raise awareness of the need and raise money to make their water systems available to more communities in more countries. They document on their website that $6 provides one child with access to clean water for up to ten years, $36 for a family, $60 for 10 people, and $300 for a classroom of children for drinking and hand washing. $14,000 is the cost of an entire PlayPump system, bringing clean water to 2,500 people for ten years.
PlayPumps International is the nonprofit collaborative that partners with the South African companies, Roundabout Outdoor and Outdoor Fabrication and Steelworks, as well as all of its advertising clients that market their products on the PlayPump billboards. Outdoor Fabrication and Steelworks manufactures the pumps and piping, which Roundabout Outdoor then helps to install and maintain in contract with PlayPumps. For its billboard sponsors, PlayPumps and Roundabout Outdoor have partnered to include International telecommunications companies like Vodacom, and consumer goods companies like Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever. In addition to selecting only socially positive content, the organization also takes great care in making sure that both public service announcements and commercial advertising are sensitive to the local community’s culture.
Founders of Playpumps Trevor Field and Paul Ristic
Working hand-in-hand with local governments and community leaders, the PlayPump system is introduced under a principle of indigenous self-ownership from the beginning. Once a community has agreed that it wants a pump, a liaison is appointed. Roundabout Outdoor then trains a local crew to install and maintain the pump, giving jobs to local workers. Over the next three years, PlayPump water systems will be installed throughout sub-Saharan Africa, with the goal of reaching 10 million people by 2010. In 2006, additional PlayPump systems were donated to communities in South Africa and pilot programs were initiated in Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zambia. Expansion to Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda, will occur in 2007 and 2008.
To read more about Playpumps and hear their story in their own words, visit us at Tactics of Hope: How Social Entrepreneurs Are Changing Our World
Photographs courtesy of Playpumps International and Kristina Gubic 2008.
The PlayPump® water system is an ingenuous, simple, low-tech solution for developing countries, which lose thousands of lives every day from lack of clean water. Roundabout Outdoor, and its non-profit partner, PlayPumps International (www.Playpumps.org), has adapted a water pump technology that doubles as a merry-go-round. Children play and turn the merry-go-round, pumping water from deep in the ground to a storage container that can be used for billboard advertising to generate revenue. The technology is replicable, as Playpumps International plans to scale its operations with 4,000 new pumps to reach 10 million people by 2010.
• 950 PlayPumps have been installed in four African countries to date; 700 of these have been in South Africa alone.
• Over 2 million people can access free clean drinking water that could not before.
• Hundreds of jobs have been created through the PlayPump maintenance program.
• PlayPumps International plans to help install 4,000 pumps by 2010, in 10 African countries, and at a cost of $60 million.
• PlayPumps International has raised $20 million to date for this initiative.
• 1 PlayPump costs $14,000 and includes equipment, installation, water quality testing, community liaison and 10 years of maintenance.
• President Bill Clinton, First Lady Laura Bush, and platinum-selling rapper Jay-Z have all endorsed PlayPumps in African communities.
The PlayPump® Water System – How It Works
While children have fun (1) spinning on the PlayPump merry-go-round, clean water (2) is pumped 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. Capable of producing up to 1,400 liters of water per hour at 16 rpm from a depth of 40 meters, it is effective up to a depth of 100 meters. Each identified borehole used for a PlayPump system undergoes a series of geo-hydrological tests as well as water chemical tests to ensure that the water source is suitable for human consumption. A typical hand pump installation cannot compete with the PlayPump system's delivery rate or quality.
The two most important ways that individuals support PlayPumps is to raise awareness of the need and raise money to make their water systems available to more communities in more countries. They document on their website that $6 provides one child with access to clean water for up to ten years, $36 for a family, $60 for 10 people, and $300 for a classroom of children for drinking and hand washing. $14,000 is the cost of an entire PlayPump system, bringing clean water to 2,500 people for ten years.
PlayPumps International is the nonprofit collaborative that partners with the South African companies, Roundabout Outdoor and Outdoor Fabrication and Steelworks, as well as all of its advertising clients that market their products on the PlayPump billboards. Outdoor Fabrication and Steelworks manufactures the pumps and piping, which Roundabout Outdoor then helps to install and maintain in contract with PlayPumps. For its billboard sponsors, PlayPumps and Roundabout Outdoor have partnered to include International telecommunications companies like Vodacom, and consumer goods companies like Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever. In addition to selecting only socially positive content, the organization also takes great care in making sure that both public service announcements and commercial advertising are sensitive to the local community’s culture.
Founders of Playpumps Trevor Field and Paul Ristic
Working hand-in-hand with local governments and community leaders, the PlayPump system is introduced under a principle of indigenous self-ownership from the beginning. Once a community has agreed that it wants a pump, a liaison is appointed. Roundabout Outdoor then trains a local crew to install and maintain the pump, giving jobs to local workers. Over the next three years, PlayPump water systems will be installed throughout sub-Saharan Africa, with the goal of reaching 10 million people by 2010. In 2006, additional PlayPump systems were donated to communities in South Africa and pilot programs were initiated in Mozambique, Swaziland, and Zambia. Expansion to Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda, will occur in 2007 and 2008.
To read more about Playpumps and hear their story in their own words, visit us at Tactics of Hope: How Social Entrepreneurs Are Changing Our World
Photographs courtesy of Playpumps International and Kristina Gubic 2008.
