Description: This is
a VOA Special English Technology Report.
See text below
Text:
A simple water pump is helping to improve the lives
of poor families in several Asian and African
countries. The treadle pump is based on a design
developed in the nineteen seventies by Norwegian
engineer Gunnar Barnes. It can be made locally.
A group based in the United States, I.D.E.,
International Development Enterprises, has created
programs in different countries.The program in India
won an Ashden Award in two thousand six for using
local sources of energy to improve quality of life.
Last year the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
awarded I.D.E. twenty-seven million dollars.
The money is to be used to expand small irrigation
projects to the other half of India's twenty-eight
states. The treadle pump is easy to build from
bamboo or other wood and two metal cylinders with
pistons.
The pistons go up and down as a person stands on
lever devices -- treadles -- and uses a natural
walking motion. How many hours a day the pump needs
to be operated depends on the season and how much
water is needed for crops. It could be two hours a
day. It could be seven hours a day.
Small children sometimes stand with their parents on
the treadles. Everyone in the family can take turns
operating the pump.
The Acumen Fund is a nonprofit group that invests in
business projects to fight poverty. It studied the
effects of treadle pumps in the Indian state of
Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh has three treadle pump
manufacturers and more than seventy-three thousand
pumps.
Acumen reported that families using them ate more
vegetables, because they were able to grow more to
eat and to sell. Many of these families also drank
more milk, because they bought a cow with their
added earnings. Men with treadle pumps often no
longer have to leave the farm to seek extra work in
cities.
The pumps can also improve education. Farmers often
use their extra earnings to buy books for their
children or to pay for schooling. A farmer in Zambia
said he hoped to have enough money in three years to
buy a diesel-powered pump. Then he could grow more
crops over a larger area.
But the world economic crisis has had an effect on
some farmers. I.D.E. executive director Zenia Tata
says some people who were able to buy diesel pumps
now do not have enough money to buy fuel. So they
are using their treadle pumps again.
And thats the VOA Special English Development
Report. Transcripts, MP3s and archives of our
reports are at voaspecialenglish.com.
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is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
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