The Pump Aid Story to date
Pump Aid was founded by Ian Thorpe together with Tendai Mawunga, Amos Chitungo and other members of the rural community in Mutasa District of Zimbabwe. At the time Ian, Tendai and Amos were all teachers at a poor rural school. When Ian first arrived from the
UK
to teach at this school he, like everyone else, had to walk a mile to collect 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. Two children at the primary school and one elderly teacher at the secondary died as a result.
Ian learnt the local language (Shona) and made friends with the Chief, Abisha Mutasa, who was the Paramount Chief for the whole of
Zimbabwe
. The direct ancestor of Abisha had been the only chief to negotiate a real agreement with Cecil Rhodes.
Rhodes
was given land in return for a promise to assist the local people in various ways. When this assistance was not forthcoming, the Chief decided he must meet with Queen
Victoria
in order to present his grievances about
Rhodes
. He boarded a ship and became the first Zimbabwean to visit
London
.
Abisha Mutasa told Ian that the agreement with
Rhodes
had not yet been honoured by the British. He gave Ian a place to build his house with a position of responsibility among the Shona people and repeated the historical expectation that Ian should in turn help the people to develop and break out of poverty. In particular Abisha identified the need for clean water and sustainable systems for irrigation. He also tasked Ian to help record the traditional Shona culture since he saw that in a single generation much of that vast knowledge could be lost.
Ian met with Bobby Lambert, now Director of RedR, and learnt of Bobby's efforts to introduce simple rope pumps for irrigation in
Zimbabwe
. After building a few similar pumps, the Pump Aid team realised that the idea had potential, although the design still needed a lot of work. Rope pumps were first built in
China
over 2000 years ago. They 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.
A two-year field trial was conducted with 100 pumps and by the year 2000 it was clear that the Elephant Pump had great potential as a sustainable and appropriate technology. Three research expeditions were conducted, including members of Pump Aid in
Zimbabwe
and volunteers from the Universities of Cambridge and
Durham
. These expeditions collected data from the field trials and helped to generate the background of research needed for Pump Aid to expand its operations in
Zimbabwe
and into
Mozambique
. As part of the last expedition in 2000, ten demonstration pumps were built in the Manica Province of Mozambique and information was gathered for expansion of operations into that area.
With a grant from the National Lottery Community Fund, general fundraising in the UK and a grant from the Oak Foundation in Zimbabwe, Pump Aid then embarked on a programme to build a further 400 pumps by the end of October 2002 bringing the total number of pumps in Zimbabwe to 500. This target was achieved by the end of June 2002 and Pump Aid is currently building about 30 new pumps every month.
Click here for 'My Story' - Ian Thorpe : Executive Director
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