☆ Extending the life of India Mark II pumps by 300% for rural Africa.

Approximately 184 million people living in Africa depend on hand pumps for their daily water supply (MacArthur, 2015) with an estimated 50,000 new hand pumps shipped to Africa each year (Sansom and Koestler, 2009).

Despite efforts to improve rural water service delivery, hand pumps serving rural communities often fall into disrepair. According to data compiled by Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) (RWSN, 2009) from 20 African nations covering 345,071 wells in 2009, 36% of hand pumps are non-operational. This results in a loss of capital investment in infrastructure and a negative impact on rural communities. When a community hand pump breaks down, families are forced to find alternative water sources. Alternative sources may include carrying water a greater distance from a hand pump in a neighboring community, or less protected sources such as hand dug scoops or surface water.

The BetterBearings product was developed by Tony Beers in consultation with World Vision during his tenure at The Collaboratory at Messiah College. Tony’s work on the product indicated that BetterBearings could extend the mean time between failures (MTBF) of bearings on India Mark II hand pumps from 9 months to 3 years or more.

With millions of India Mark II pump currently installed worldwide, a substantial market for longer-life replacement bearings may exist.

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