|
|
“The aim is to bring water and sanitation to all our schools, and the PlayPump is an important step in that direction.” ~ Aires Aly Minister of Education and Culture, Mozambique
DID YOU KNOW? • Unsafe water and lack of sanitation is now the single largest cause of illness worldwide.
• Unless we act now, by 2025 the number of people who lack access to clean water could increase to 2.3 billion.
• Half the people in developing countries are suffering from water-related diseases.
• Because so much time is spent collecting water, girls are often denied the opportunity to go to school and women can not pursue incoming generating activities to help them provide for their families.
• Approximately 4 billion cases of diarrhea per year cause 2.2 million deaths. Most -- 1.7 million -- are children under the age of five.
• Tanzanian households use 80 liters of water per person per day; Australians, 240; and residents of Phoenix, Arizona, 293.
| The Arizona Region of Phi Theta Kappa Teams Together with Play Pump International to Make a Difference  PlayPumps International is a nonprofit collaborative that enables individuals, governments, foundations, and companies to donate PlayPump™ water systems to rural African communities and schools. Donors to PlayPumps International 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. Read more here.
How The PlayPump Works
While children have fun spinning on the PlayPump merry-go-round (1), 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 women 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.
A typical hand pump installation cannot compete with the PlayPump system's delivery rate, even with substantial effort.
| Every 15 seconds a child dies from a water related illness.
 This is not happening in the United States because we have government controlled water quality checks. It happens in impoverished third world countries and communities like rural Africa.
The main cause are surface wells. These wells are prone to contamination from things like insects, water run-off; even the bucket used to draw water from these surface wells adds contamination to the well.
The way to avoid this is to drill a borehole into the water table, use a pump to fill a storage tank and allow the water to be drawn from a simple tap.
Conventional pumping systems utilize either a gas or diesel powered pump, expensive items that require fuel and constant maintenance, not to mention the pollutants they pour out into the atmosphere. The gas or diesel systems typically cost around $40,000.
Play Pump International, a non-profit organization registered in the United States has developed a pumping system that drills into the water table, pumps the water into a 660 gallon storage tank and allows it to be drawn from a simple tap as well BUT the difference is the pump. The pump utilizes something that we here in the United States have taken for granted since we were little kids, a common piece of playground equipment, a merry-go-round.
Typically, children in rural Africa do not have play ground equipment so when this type of system is installed near a school, children naturally gravitate to the merry-go-round and as they play, they are pumping the water for their village.
The pump emits zero pollutants. Some maintenance is required in that the bearings of the merry-go-round need to be greased. The storage has four square sides, two of the sides will be used for public education announcements and the other two side would be sold for commercial advertisements. The revenue form this advertisement would be used to pay for the grease and somebody to grease the bearings. Basically, once the system is installed, it pays for itself.
The cost, $14,000. It is our goal to raise the $14,000 to provide a pumping system to a rural village in Africa.
|
|