Pump Aid - Water Charity - Save lives with AquAid Water Coolers
In the year 2000 a small charity was established by the name of Pump Aid. Its founder Ian Thorpe, had been a teacher in a poor village school in Zimbabwe. He, like everyone else, had to walk a mile to collect drinking water in buckets from an unprotected source. Due to a shortage of firewood and the high cost of paraffin, most people did not boil their drinking water, so there was an outbreak of dysentery when a snake fell into the water source and decomposed.
Water Charity
Two children at the primary school and one elderly teacher at the secondary died as a result.
Ian learned that throughout Zimbabwe (and as he later learned, throughout much of Africa), this was a common occurrence.
He investigated what options there were for somehow sourcing the water from an underground and protected source. Over 2000 years ago the Chinese had developed a special Rope pump which used bamboo pipes, twine ropes and disks of leather to lift water. Going back to these first simple principles, the Pump Aid team developed a new design of rope pump and named it the Elephant Pump.
Every pump installed costs only £200 and can supply more than 200 school children with safe drinking water. In the last year, 2007, we have been able to donate over £392,000, thanks to our customers.
Save lives with mains water cooler
Every time a business or school takes four mains water cooler, AquAid donate the money for Pump Aid to install an Elephant Pump in the name of the organisation.
To date AquAid have donated more than £777,000.00 to Pump Aid resulting in more than 777,000 children being supplied with water.
