Developed in 1997 by a socially responsible South African advertising company, Roundabout Outdoor, “Playpumps” are innovative, low-tech devices that serve as both children’s merry-go-rounds and sources of rural water supply.

Installed directly above water wells at schools in rural areas, they harness the energy of children at play to supply villages with 1,400 liters of clean drinking water/hour into overhead storage tanks. A typical hand pump installation only produces 150 liters of water each hour to ground level where it cannot be stored hygienically, leading to serious health problems.

Roundabout Outdoor has now successfully installed more than 700 Play Pumps in rural communities of South Africa. The Grassroots Business Initiative is working with the enterprise to expand its operations into the rest of Africa, beginning with Mozambique, Swaziland, and Uganda.

In Mozambique, 30 pumps will be installed, the minimum number of pumps that can economically be transported into a country like Mozambique. The project will not only test whether the PlayPump concept can be replicated in another African country, it will also test whether Playpumps can be moved to a more commercial model.

In Uganda, a franchise model will be tested for the first time to explore whether or not franchising would be a viable strategy for overall Africa expansion.

In addition to these scaling up activities, GBI is assisting with expanding Roundabout Outdoor’s marketing efforts though the installation of working model PlayPumps in amusement parks in the First World, where people can have an opportunity to donate money for PlayPumps in developing countries.

Sept. 2005: PlayPumps Expands to Mozambique

www.playpumps.org
Video (150 K, 56K)
Powerpoint presentation by Trevor Field, Playpumps Director