February 2007
Playpumps founder Trevor Field visits campusIn an effort to demonstrate how an engineering project can help people worldwide, WISE brought Playpumps developer Trevor Field to campus to talk to students from a variety of disciplines. Field, a retired advertising executive, had done well in life and wanted to give back to his community. He noticed that in many rural African villages, the burden of collecting water fell mainly to the women and girls of the household. Each morning, he would see them set off to the nearest borehole to collect water. They used leaky and often contaminated hand-pumps to collect the water. They then carried it back through the bush in buckets weighing 40 pounds. It is exhausting and time-consuming work. For the women, it meant time spent away from their children. For the girls, it often meant not attending school. In 1989, Field accompanied his father-in-law to an agricultural fair in Pretoria. There he saw a remarkable water pump technology that created a pump from a children’s merry-go-round. He immediately saw the potential for the aptly named “PlayPump” to make a profound difference in the lives of people who depended upon wells as their source of water. Field proposed adding a high level water tank to the prototype, which would create dual benefits of being able to collect a large, protected supply of water and to sell advertising space that could help pay for the PlayPump, since poor, rural African communities would not have the means to buy one. In 1994, the first two PlayPumps were installed in the Masinga District, the most remote area of the KwaZulu-Natal Province. Umgeni Water Company sponsored the manufacture and installation of the PlayPumps and Colgate-Palmolive advertised toothpaste on the commercial advertising boards. Field also reserved a spot for an ad for the national loveLife campaign, which helps educate children about HIV and AIDS. Thus the PlayPumps operating model was born, with a donated PlayPump and tank and advertising revenue covering maintenance costs. The turning point for the PlayPump came late in 1999, when South African President Nelson Mandela attended the ceremonial installation of a PlayPump at a school in Rietfontein. Early the next year, the PlayPump won the prestigious World Bank Development Marketplace Award. At his Rackham talk, Field eschewed a PowerPoint presentation, instead opting to show a 6-minute video on PlayPumps filmed by PBS and then opening it up to questions from the audience. Otherwise, he told the audience, he’d stand up there “and talk for the next two days nonstop.” The audience, made up of students from a wide range of schools and colleges across campus, lined up five and six deep at two microphones. Field fielded questions about expansion plans, filtration and disinfection, apartheid, franchising, patents, and sustainability. In response to one questioner, Field said the biggest hurdle remains fundraising. But there are “loads of obstacles,” he said, including the bees that built a nest in one storage tank. “You ever smell rotten bees?” Field asked the audience. “You don’t want to.” He said each PlayPump lasts about 15-20 years before needing to be replaced. Field said his desire to “give something back” is why he works tirelessly for his cause. “If you can make someone’s life easier, they’ll remember that,” he said. One audience member asked how he dealt with political instability in neighboring countries when thinking of expansion. Field said, for instance, that he would love to install some of his roundabouts in Zimbabwe. “It makes me sick that we can’t; they’re our neighbor,” he said. “But I can’t risk what small amount we have in a war.” Field said that he loves Africa and is devoted to installing as many roundabouts there as possible. A couple of questioners asked about doing the same work in other needy countries, such as India. Installing PlayPumps around Africa will “take all of my life,” he said. “I’d like to export to other countries but Africa takes up too much of my time.” Field said he is satisfied with his work and happy to be making a difference. “Kids have very limited facilities so playground equipment is almost unheard of,” he said. “The kids really do enjoy it.” Co-sponsors of Field’s visit included the William Davidson Institute, the Global Health Research Training Project, the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute, the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, School of Public Health, and the BlueLab student organization. For podcasts, and more information on Trevor Field, please visit www.wise.umich.edu/news/field.html.
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