community ownership

Build and Maintainance

The engagement of the community in all steps of the project to deliver clean water is crucial to ensuring that any solution is sustainable in the long term.

By involving the community in the construction they feel ownership over the pump and its benefits. Each pump has a Water Point Committee of 10 people made up of both men women. They are taught the maintainance skills they need through the provision of training workshops. Members are taught how to maintain the pump using locally available materials, including making replacement rope from local plants and melting down waste plastic to make replacement washers. Once the pump has been installed, the ‘water point committee’ must take full responsibility for its on-going maintenance and the co-ordination of appropriate responses to any breakdown that may occur.

Each pump also has a Pump Minder, responsible for keeping the Pump Record and any further maintainance.  They also hold the key to the lid which encloses the Pump structure to prevent contamination.  In instances where the pump cannot be maintained by the Minder, they will consult the Pump Mechanic or the District Water Officer.

A trained Pump Mechanic looks after 10 Elephant Pumps and is responsible for attending to any pump faults that cannot be handled by the Water Point Committee or Pump Minder.  A District Water Officer is also trained in Elephant Pump technology and a directory of Pump Minders and Pump Mechanics is held by the District Assembly.

Absence of Branding

Pump Aid tries to discourage any form of pump branding or any claim to ‘own a pump’ by a benefactor. Instead communities are encouraged to have ‘ownership’ and responsibility for their pump, it’s maintainance and the impact it can have on changing their future. Having an inscription on the pump can undermine this strategy leading to beneficiaries relying on outside organisations to fix any problems that may occur rather than taking responsibility themselves.

With reference to branded water systems Unicef commented ‘It raises questions regarding the ownership since the user community/institution has no control over the advertising that its system displays and receives no direct benefit from the revenue generated”.

A further consideration is inscribing a pump also involves a team re-visiting the site once the cement on the housing has dried, incurring extra fuel and labour costs as well as taking  staff away from other more important tasks.