Water pump + playtime = Girls’ education in Africa.

This is pretty clever: A non profit called PlayPumps International has developed an easy to build and maintain water pump system utilizing child labor in order to pump fresh water from the ground into a storage container…

No, no, we’re not talking about back-breaking, human rights issue child labor: the water pump doubles as a merry-go-round. When the kids play on it, it is also working to bring up fresh water found about 120 feet below the ground and passing it to a reservoirs tank.

So what does this have to do with girls’ education in Africa? Well, the project has begun in sub-Saharan Africa, where girls are responsible for fulfilling the jobs of water carrier. Because they have to carry water back from springs and lakes, they are usually late for school and have to join the boys later on in the day.

With this system, the idea is that all the kids help the process move faster and the girls don’t have to be late for school, improving their education opportunities.

The video below has the full dirt on the project:

The site is taking donations, of course. Each pump costs $14,00.

Here are some additional facts from their site concerning human water crisis:

• More than one billion people worldwide do not have access to clean water.
• Water-related diseases are the leading cause of death in the world, taking the lives of 6,000 people a day, and are responsible for 80 percent of all sickness in the world.
• 40 billion hours are lost annually to hauling water, a chore primarily undertaken by women and girls.
• Unsafe water and lack of sanitation is now the single largest cause of illness worldwide.
• Unless we act now, by 2025 the number of people who lack access to clean water could increase to 2.3 billion.
• Half the people in developing countries are suffering from water-related diseases.