Playpumps – When Naive Well-Meaning Westerners Strike
July 1st, 2010
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This is the Playpump:
The basic idea is that children in Africa play on a manually driven merry-go-round, not unlike those found in many playgrounds and enjoy themselves, not even thinking of it as work, but in the process they pump water out from a well into a tank so that it can be used by their communities. Of course, there’s no doubt water wells provide a much healthier alternative to carrying water miles or using surface streams and ponds for water, and the makers of the Playpump claim it is superior to the traditional hand-operated pumps that have generally been used to provide water because it’s powered by children playing as they would anyway.
Seems like a good idea, right?
Well it does to many groups, which is why it’s not surprising to see that the concept has been embraced by so many of the most high profile philanthro-publicity groups. Peace Portal, The Clinton Foundation, MTV and many many celebrities can’t seem to get enough Playpumps.
The Playpump costs about $14,000 per installation, which is at least four times more than a comparable well with a hand-operated pump. However, some might say that it’s worth paying a bit more for bountiful, clean, safe, water. They’re manufactured and installed by Roundabout Outdoor, which is contracted through Playpumps international (now part of Water for People), with production facilities primarily in South Africa and pumps installed at hundreds villages across the continent. In many cases, the pumps replace older wells with buckets of handpumps used to collect water and in doing so are the only source of water available to the villages.
But, as with so many things, this seemingly innovative, benevolent and wonderful idea is not quite all that it seems.
While a number of aid organizations and fund drives continue to enthusiastically support the Playpump concept and focus on installing more and more of them, other groups have been less than satisfied with the systems. The group Wateraid reviewed the Playpump system and found it inadequate for most circumstances, citing the fact that it was only for use in playgrounds, was expensive and could not be easily fixed with local parts.
Owen Scott, a Canadian developer with Engineers Without Borders traveled to Africa to see the system in action and found that the Playpump hardly lived up to the hype. He reported:
Each time I’ve visited a Playpump, I’ve always found the same scene: a group of women and children struggling to spin it by hand so they can draw water…. As soon as the foreigner with a camera comes out (aka me), kids get excited. And when they get excited, they start playing. Within 5 minutes, the thing looks like a crazy success…. I’ve always figured that as soon as I leave the excitement wears off and the pump reverts back to its normal state: being spun manually by women and kids
Having investigated how the pump is used after the ribbon cutting is over and the cameras have been packed up and hauled away, Scott found the pumps were not living up to the claims and in many cases, were inferior to the hand pumps they replaced. He called the Playpump “a pretty weak idea.”
Some Of The Major Problems Which Have Been Cited:
- The Playpump has proven to be prone to malfunction. They break significantly more often than the traditional hand pumps, which are very mechanically simple and have few parts to fail. Many Playpump installations have malfunctioned and do not provide water at all.
- Unlike simpler pumps, when a Playpump breaks, it’s not easy to fix and generally can’t be repaired by locals. When a traditional hand pump breaks, it does not require any special skill or parts to repair and can usually be taken care of quickly. However, the Playpump system is not designed to be user-serviceable and uses parts that are not common. When it breaks, a village can be without safe reliable drinking water until a Playpump technician visits to repair the pump. This can take many months.
- Children don’t actually like playing with the rotating pump wheel all that much and don’t necessarily provide a reliable source of energy. It really should not be a surprise that a single playground item like a small underpowered merry-go-round would not be enthusiastically used for hours on end by children. They may play on it a bit, but for the pump to really be productive, it has to be used very heavily. When it is first installed, children may use it heavily, but the novelty wears off fast. Before long, children have to be told to use it, making it a chore and defeating the whole purpose.
- It is often necessary for adults to turn the wheel to pump water. This is not only because of the lack of constant enthusiasm by children, but because in many villages, children spend a large portion of the year out working in the fields. In these circumstances, the ones left at the village to turn the pump are primarily pregnant and elderly women. For them the walking in constant circles to turn the wheel is considerably more effort than a hand pump.
Despite the checkered record of the Playpump, it still seems to be attracting plenty of funding and attention. It’s got Africa, clean water and giggling children, so what more could you want for a photo op?
The saddest thing about the program is that, for all it’s good intentions, many villages which had the system installed to replace their old hand-operated well pumps simply would like to have their old pumps back, in such cases, the Playpump has clearly been a lot of money spent to do more harm than good.
As with many such blunders, there are lessons to be learned from the Playpump. Some of the important ones include the importance of listening to the people who you are trying to help. They may be poor, but that does not make them stupid. If they say that the hand pumps are superior, don’t shove a system you think is better down their throats. Also, follow up on aid and make sure it is actually working before continuing to supply the same aid elsewhere and never assume that what looks like a good idea at first will turn out so rosy in the real world.
Would-be well-doers should learn a thing or two about the culture and above all else, make sure that the locals are aware that you want to help out and that therefore it’s more important that they be honest than they they put on a good show for the cameras. Clearly many of the villages where this was installed are trying not to disappoint or insult the visitors who come to photograph their Playpump. It may very well be more useful to talk to them when there is not a big camera shoved in their faces.
Above all else, remember that the fact that you’re from Europe or North America and have light colored skin does not mean you know what is best for everyone.
There are many suffering in Africa without safe water and food and nobody can claim the continent does not have many problems that need to be addressed. Yet with enough money and effort, the wealthy countries of the world are working to make sure that every one of those hungry, thirsty children will have a laptop.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 1st, 2010 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Education, Enviornment, Misc, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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July 1st, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Not that I’m calling for a return to colonial rule in the Third World, but it often seems that a white man with a whip often did more good for these places than well-meaning liberals do now
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July 2nd, 2010 at 12:04 am
DV82XL said:
Don’t give them handouts and treat them like children who can’t think for themselves. Don’t treat them like slaves and human commodities either.
Just treat them like anyone else. If they want a pump, let them buy a pump and don’t tell them which one they need. let them pick it out. They don’t need to be given pumps. Let them take out some credit to buy them if need be. In the long run, it’s really better that way.
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July 2nd, 2010 at 12:19 am
The hand operated pump is the cheapest, so that has a big benefit because cheaper means you ca afford more of them for more villages. If it is the goal to provide a better pump that is more reliable or easy on children ad women, even if it costs more, why not a wind powered pump? Windmill pumps are great because the wind does not need to blow constantly for it to fill a tank and there can be a tank on the same tower as the windmill. Also, if they did build one, I think they should have a secondary hand pump on it too, as a backup becausen water is too important for not having a backup.
They use wind mill powered pumps to draw water for livestock all the time and they have done so for years.
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July 2nd, 2010 at 2:55 am
I picture a group of friends sitting around (possibly in a cloud of pot smoke) musing about what untapped energy sources could be harnessed to solve the world’s ills. When someone jokingly mentions the seemingly boundless energy of children at play, one of them takes it to heart and sets about designing a new contraption to put that energy to use.
In the end, what they’ve done is combined an unreliable energy source with the added complexity and hazards of a storage system, and neglected to allow the user to bypass the “improvements” to at least get a basic level of service should the energy source decide it’s not in the mood to play (literally) or should there be a problem with all the additional plumbing or the storage system. Over-engineering applied to fix a system that isn’t broken.
Perhaps they could install electric pumps linked to quartz piezoelectric generators that are powered by the moans of the thirsty hoards as they lament not having a hand pump.
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July 2nd, 2010 at 4:02 am
Shafe said:
So nothing like wind or solar power then.
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July 2nd, 2010 at 4:12 am
[Other] Matthew said:
So true. But at least wind has a long, successful history of pumping groundwater. I can only hope that this playground equipment solution is only being used after determining that there is insufficient wind at a given site.
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July 2nd, 2010 at 6:36 am
This reminds me of unthinking and heavy-handed moves against child labor by Western do-gooders. They tend to forget that twelve hours working in a factory making clothing for Gap is better than twenty-four hours of starvation on the street. In fact most efforts to pass laws against child labor in the underdeveloped world cause immense suffering and often push these manumitted children into prostitution or worse.
The fact is that before the Industrial Revolution virtually all children worked in agriculture. During the Industrial Revolution many of these children moved from farm work to factory work. Over time, as real wages rose, parents became able to afford to send their children to school instead of work and as a result child labour declined. Laws only finished the job that economics started. This is our history, yet we deny this step to others regardless of the cost to the very people we are trying to help.
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July 2nd, 2010 at 8:04 am
I’d really like to help people in Third World countries feed themselves and generally lift themselves up out of their situation, but I don’t want to see my money being used on something well-intentioned but prone to problems. Which charities would you folks recommend I send my money to?
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July 2nd, 2010 at 8:25 am
DV82XL said:
With respect, this is a bit like saying that Chernobyl blew up therefore all modern nuclear reactors are at risk of blowing up – the social and economic conditions are totally different.
I agree to some extent with the idea that forcing humanitarian laws on under-developed countries doesn’t necessarily help anyone, but the comparison with western industrial revolutions (where entrepreneurship was king and social boundaries were shattered) is folly.
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July 2nd, 2010 at 1:34 pm
I’mnotreallyhere said:
I was not suggesting that what is going on in these places is comparable to the Western Industrial Revolution, in that sense. I was only pointing out that child labor in agriculture is not seen as exploitation, whereas as an economy shifts from agrarian to manufacturing suddenly working children is a crime against humanity and must be stopped, instead of recognizing that it is a transitional phase that has been shown to improve on its own without intervention.
However, the practice of boycotts and embargoes that is the usual outcome of First Word outrage at this practice inevitably leaves both parents and children unemployed and now unemployable in any legitimate job, thus forcing them into worse conditions. This sort of short-sighted interference actually delays the development of a strong enough economy in these countries, that would see a natural end to the practice of working youngsters, and condemns many to death by starvation.
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July 2nd, 2010 at 4:09 pm
So, what should be done about the plight of people in the Third World, and are there any charities I can donate money to that are working towards that end? I’d like to know as soon as possible, since I’m thinking of starting a fundraiser of some sort.
Thanks, Lucario
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July 2nd, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Lucario said:
In terms of bang-for-the-buck, you have to look at some of the micro-finance operations working in poor areas. All of there offer small loans to individuals, (mostly women) to start small enterprises. The extension of very small loans (microloans) to those in poverty is designed to spur entrepreneurship. These individuals lack collateral, steady employment and a verifiable credit history and therefore cannot meet even the most minimal qualifications to gain access to traditional credit.
Based on some rather strange metrics (like weight gain in children in communities with access to micro-credit) it can be a success. The movement is not without its issues and detractors, it is true, but the big picture is very encouraging. One thing to keep in mind is that these have been most successful in places with a long history in entrepreneurship, as it is the case in Asia, and less effective in places where the fundamentals are not part of the culture.
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July 2nd, 2010 at 10:05 pm
Lucario said:
Before donating money to anything, research it thouroughly and make sure you look for any negative side or detractors and see if they have something valid to say.
that’s about all I can say. Just examine it well.
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July 2nd, 2010 at 10:47 pm
As a rule of thumb, I would avoid donating to anything that starts with the letters “UN”.
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July 3rd, 2010 at 12:35 am
Shafe said:
I’d say that one should avoid anything that starts throwing the word “sustainable” around. That one word is starting to get under my skin because it seems to always be associated with some kind of product or idea that doesn’t actually work.
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July 3rd, 2010 at 12:43 am
It seems like there is one very big problem here (in addition to the small ones) and it really should have been very obvious. Children do not like playing on something forevr and a spinning wheel for a playground is okay for a bit but not great for hours and hours of play.
I have seen similar wheels on playgrounds and schoolyards. They don’t power anything, but kids can jump on and spin them. They are used a bit, from time to time, but they’re not the kind of thing kids enjoy playing on endlessly. You put one in a park and most of the time it sits there. Kids might play on it once in a while and play on swings and seesaws and monkey bars or whatever, but they never play on one thing continuously for hours.
I can remember being a kid and playing on stuff. I can remember spinning for a bit and then doing something else. It just isn’t the kind of thing you want to do all day every day. If you have to do so for water, it becomes work.
Did nobody even stop to think of this?
Maybe they should have gone to a playground and counted the number of hours such a spinny thing was used and the number it was not being used.
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July 3rd, 2010 at 6:39 am
Lucario said:
I’d like to put in a pitch for Educate Uganda, a small charity based in Omaha. It pays the school fees for orphans and 100% of donations go to the kids (all administrative costs are borne by the board members). Ordinarily I’m against charities that just give away stuff, be it mosquito netting, water pumps or even school tuition. Having the end user to pay at least part of the costs makes the thing more valued. But the idea of making micro student loans to orphans seems wrong. On the other hand, Cooperative for Education sets up a sustainable school book program where seed money pays for an initial set of books for schools in Guatemala. Book fees (paid by parents) then build a fund to replace the books every few years. Because the families invest their own money the books tend to be well taken care of until the time comes to replace them.
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July 3rd, 2010 at 7:05 am
drbuzz0 said:
“Before donating money to anything, research it thouroughly and make sure you look for any negative side or detractors and see if they have something valid to say.
that’s about all I can say. Just examine it well.”
So, are there any websites that list the negatives and positives of a lot of charities? If not, what do you think I should Google for if I want to find out such information?
Also, I’d love to know which charities you, drbuzz0, recommend if you really do want to donate money. I just thought you had a preference.
Also, Blubba, do you happen to have the Web or physical addresses for the charities you mentioned? Can’t donate if I don’t have a place to donate to.
Thanks, Lucario
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July 3rd, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Ah. very good! I have seen too many sites mindlessly going for this and other projects with little use. Look on youtube at the videos and you will clearly see so many say “This is so simple and great what a great idea.” Even look at the first video and they put “100% good” in the cement of one of these. They can’t stop for a second from thanking themselves and offering their own praise for what they do!
There is a real world solution to the issues with the handpumps. Hand-operated pumps and bore wells prove very successful for bringing water to villages. They can be improved by an innovation based on how African people have been modifying them. the short lever is replaced with a longer one which gives good mechanical advantage to women, older people and children. At the end of the handle it has a T-shape with another bar that comes of in both directions. this makes it easier to grip and it means two people can work together to pump and share the load if the well is deep.
Now pumps are being made like this and it barely increases their price at all and does not increase their complexity of potential to fail.
Wind driven pumps are sometimes the way to go. These are good for larger communities where it is necessary to have more water. In that circumstance, a hand pump is still recommended as a backup device if the wind power pump fails.
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July 4th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
Pumping groundwater is the oldest use of wind power. Ideally, a windmill should have a hand-operation option for when the wind is not blowing, but even pumping water by wind some of the time is an improvement for a lot of people, who otherwise are resigned to doing the entire job by hand as they have no other alternative.
As far as solar, my favorite third-world use of this is not for generating electricity but the most practical cheap water purification system I’ve seen yet. Take empty clear plastic water bottles, peel off the labels, fill them with water that’s not to disgusting looking, and leave it out in the sun on a piece of metal (and in many of these areas, there is at least one building with a corrugated metal roof). After a few hours, the UV radiation has killed all the pathogens. (Providing labels have been removed; shadows will protect some of the pathogens from irradiation.)
Frankly, this “playpump” concept makes my skin crawl. Did not one person think there was anything at all ironic in saying “oh, they can have plenty of fresh water — just put their kids in a modern version of a slave wheel!” After all, as recently as the Enlightenment, it was not uncommon to power devices with children in a wheel. It was horrible. To suggest people satisfy their clean water needs by harnessing their *children* is to suggest that poor Africans have no compulsion about child labor. And while it’s true they do resort to child labor, this is not really out of choice. This isn’t just badly designed and ill considered, and it doesn’t just insult Africans by suggesting they are stupid. It’s worse; it insults them by suggesting their children’s labor is an exploitable resource, and by suggesting they are the sorts of people who would *like* to exploit that labor.
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July 5th, 2010 at 5:32 am
Erwin said:
Yes it work nice but it has two drawbacks, more expensive and you need a solid tower for the water tank, you also has to keep the water in the reservoir clean, this is not a issue if you use the water for irrigation or animals. A good idea if you want to provide plumbing or also need water for irrigation.
Anyway this stupid idea reminds me of an animation I made. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy8c-YYdB4g I could just as well use one of these pumps.
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July 6th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Lucario said:
Personally I back Oxfam (UK, since it’s rather decentralised) as a general aid and development charity and MAG, who’re specifically anti-landmines.
Oxfam get some bad press for supporting Palestinians and hence by extension seem to get accused of being anti-semitic – which in some circles seems to carry the same weight as accusations of paedophilia. Irrespective of your religious and political affiliations though, you’d be a bit of an idiot to think that a sustainable and beneficial peace can be obtained while there are hundreds of thousands of people living in poverty in refugee camps.
MAG is all about clearance of mines and unexploded bombs and stuff. I’m sure some people would criticise them for perhaps taking political sides, but again, you’d have to be a moron to argue that getting rid of unexploded weaponry in civilian areas is a bad idea.
I freely admit I’ve done essentially no research into how they do what they do, but I’ve not seen a noticeable amount of negative press on either organisation.
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July 7th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
I seem to have heard that Oxfam was tied up with pedophilia. thanks for reminding me of that outrage, not really heer ( are you bald or just deaf?).
BTW, do the Oxfam pedophiliacs just molest children in the camps, or are they equal opportunity? If it’s just the camps, then the kids are already accustomed to it from the UN people. Otherwise I think Oxfam should be stopped.
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July 12th, 2010 at 2:29 am
Alice said:
Am I bald or just deaf? How would my baldness or deafness (or lack thereof) have any impact on anything at all? Am I missing something here?
And for the record, an individual who commits paedophilia is a “paedophile” (or pedophile, I’ll happily accept you’re probably from the USA).
However, I do have to concede that after a couple of pages of a Google search I did come across a CNN article which I think you were alluding to. To summarise for everyone else, Save The Children released a report in early 2009 after interviewing children in a few of the worst hit areas of the world and found that quite a few tales of abuse from UN forces and humanitarian workers came to light.
I will be taking some time to review my patronage of Oxfam, but having found the original report I would stress that they are not in anyway highlighted as a poor example. Indeed, they co-operate with Save the Children and the International Committee of the Red Cross in a system of mutual review and investigation, each keeping an eye on each other.
Save the Children accept and openly admit that they themselves are not immune to such problems, that despite clearly aiming to protect minor, they too receive accusations of abuse and, like Oxfam, take them very seriously indeed.
It’s a sad thought, but show me a large benevolent organisation not accused of child abuse and I’ll show you the gunman from the grassy knoll.
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July 14th, 2010 at 2:35 am
The most effective way of getting sufficient safe water to people is not to donate swings and pumps. Someone will just steal them and sell them to another country.
The solution is to promote economic development by getting the stuff that we, the lucky citizens of developed countries, want for cheap.
Will the countries we do business with be beacons of middle class values? I doubt it. Will there be abuses? Undoubtedly. However, charity and “international aid” undermine developing societies. George Orwell would look at Africa, darling of the NGO and the UN for so many years, and say:
“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”
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July 27th, 2010 at 5:40 am
Lucario said:
I think the best and most effective place to donate time and/or money is something local. Whether it is being a friend to someone who is lonely, giving food and/or your time to the local foodbank, mentoring a young person in their career, you will find something around the corner from you! You get to see the effect of your giving and you, your family, your friends, all benefit. Remember the butterfly effect.
Also, this way the cultural barriers are less and the danger of cultural imposition is reduced. People forget there are in people in need everywhere.
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July 27th, 2010 at 5:40 am
Lucario said:
I think the best and most effective place to donate time and/or money is something local. Whether it is being a friend to someone who is lonely, giving food and/or your time to the local foodbank, mentoring a young person in their career, you will find something around the corner from you! You get to see the effect of your giving and you, your family, your friends, all benefit. Remember the butterfly effect. Also, this way the cultural barriers are less and the danger of cultural imposition is reduced. People forget there are in people in need everywhere.
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