Healing the Landscape of Broken Wells
→by Fred Proby, Water Programs Specialist

During my first trip with Lifewater in 1992, I was standing with a village chief looking at an unused hand pump on a village well in Malawi, Africa. Through a translator, we had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: Why are people not using this pump?
Chief: It’s broken.
Me: How long has it been broken?
Chief: About two years.
Me: What is wrong with it?
Chief: It’s broken!
Me: I mean, has anyone opened it up to see if it can be fixed?
Chief: Oh, no—that well belongs to the Japanese.

The well had been installed by an aid agency using a professional drill crew who told the village, “Here’s your well,” and then moved on to the next location. The aid agency had done nothing to enable the village to maintain the well. Because they never felt a sense of ownership, the community did not feel they had the right to attempt a repair, even if they could have fixed it. So for two more years they went back to getting water from a nearby swamp.


Solution (Part 1):
Community Ownership
Community ownership ensures that a well can continuously supply safe water. Lifewater encourages ownership by working only where invited, establishing and training village water committees, and making a ceremony of handing over the well to the community. Village water committees are tasked with collecting modest user fees to pay for well maintenance and repair. Where appropriate, Lifewater and its partners also give the community a deed to the well that spells out the community’s rights and responsibilities. But even when local communities understand their responsibility to repair their water systems when they break, many lack the skills and resources they need to repair them. Some types of hand pumps commonly installed by aid agencies throughout the world require special skills and tools to repair.

Solution (Part 2):
Local Ability
The second requirement that keeps pumps working is local ability: ensuring that communities possess the skills, tools, and parts needed to keep their well working.

Lifewater’s pump repair program addresses these issues. (Our Hand Pump Repair manual is available at www.Lulu.com - search “Lifewater.”) We also equip our partners with the tools needed to safely work on the pumps found in their area. We have even invented new tools that make repairs easier. (Visit lifewater.org/hand-pump-repair-tools to learn more.)

Solution (Part 3):
Available, Affordable Repair Parts
The vast majority of hand pumps for wells are manufactured in India. This is a serious barrier for a rural African community. If the pump on their well has been imported by an aid agency, as is often the case, there may be no local dealers from whom parts can be purchased. Or, if parts are available in that country, they may be too expensive or far away. Replacement parts must be easy to obtain.

There are several ways to make pump parts more available and economical. One solution is to open more stores that sell pump replacement parts. Lifewater is pursuing this option with one of our partners in Uganda. However, since parts will need to be imported from India, cost may still be a barrier for a typical village.

Another approach is to build hand pumps locally. While Africa lacks the strong industrial base it would need to compete with India in making high-end hand pumps, it could feasibly manufacture the bush pump, which can be built and maintained with materials and skills available to most African communities. Unfortunately, bush pumps use a pump cylinder (the below-ground component that brings water to the surface) imported from India. When it breaks, the community still has an expensive piece to purchase. The challenge is to develop a pump cylinder that can be made and repaired locally, so pump downtime can be significantly reduced. It is a tragedy for a well to remain broken for long!

In the early ‘90s, Lifewater founder Bill Ashe and a number of Lifewater volunteers began experimenting with pump cylinder designs that could be made from parts available in most African hardware stores. They learned that making a pump cylinder that can withstand constant use is very difficult.

Last year, Lifewater became aware of a pump cylinder design that appears to have solved one of the principle durability problems. However, the cylinder’s designer, Steve Lorch of Hydromissions International, did not have a way to test it and had not received feedback on the cylinder’s performance. So Lifewater engaged three mechanical engineering students from California Polytechnic State University—Brian Calbeck, Eric Bates, and Kyle Schierenbeck—to build a pump cylinder test platform to test the Hydromissions cylinder under conditions that approximate village use. Their project resulted in a very effective machine that runs unattended and records details about each pump cylinder experiment.

Now that Lifewater has an automated test platform, the next step is to see how long the Hydromissions cylinder can last before needing repair. Lifewater will enlist others to experiment with ways to build and repair the cylinder with tools and materials available to most African communities.

If this project interests you, we invite your participation, either financially or with pump cylinder innovations that we can test. Please send your inquiry to info@lifewater.org, with “Attn: Fred Proby” in the subject line.