Comments on: The PlayPump: What Went Wrong?

By: Why do you need to know my name?

Why do you need to know my name? — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 19:07:42 +0000

I believe that the playpump is a great idea… but the article is right. The playpump is turning play, into work. They’re forcing kids to work, just as the kids where in the beginning! The playpump forces kids to work, just in a different way!

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 12:46:47 +0000

Steve Case has published a useful analysis of the PlayPump saga http://www.casefoundation.org/blog/painful-acknowledgement-coming-short It makes an interesting follow-on read to this story.

By: Dave birch

Dave birch — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:33:49 +0000

For three consecutive years I have raised funds through cycling with friends in south Africa. The visits to the schools showed me how grateful the children are to both play and get fresh clean safe water. The head of governors at the last school near Nelspruit told me how playing on the roundabout melted away the daily stress of these poor children. I am proud to support the one foundation and the roundabout play pump organisation in south Africa. Some projects do fail, most work, let us hope the bad press goes away.

By: Duncan Goose

Duncan Goose — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 10:44:17 +0000

Hi Jane
I think you’ve picked up on a few mixed messages which are, unfortunately, floating around on the web, some old, some inaccurate, and to say that “The Playpumps organization has been shown to be a fraud following…..” couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact PlayPumps International was created by The Case Foundation – Steve Case being the (billionaire) founder of AOL and he ad his wife, Jean, being some of America’s foremost philanthropists. There are also some mis-informed reports which have been re-tracted by the NGO’s you mentioned after it was discovered that the contractors they’d been using for installation were actually not, how shall we say, being completely honest in their analysis.

As a charitable foundation we have a board of trustees who’s job it is to separate fact from fiction, and spin from the realities of life. If we, and me personally, had any issues (and we do a lot of background checks – some of them in a ‘mystery shopper’ type format) we’d stop what we were doing.

I’d be happy to chat more if that would help – or do drop me an email at duncan.goose@global-ethics.com

All the best

Duncan

By: Jane Franklin

Jane Franklin — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 11:29:34 +0000

I was amazed to read on the BBC website today that six months after the demise of playpumps the organization One Difference is selling it’s brand of bottled water ‘One Water’ to support playpump projects across Africa. According to their FAQs (http://www.onedifference.org/faq) they have are building playpumps at a rate of one playpump every 3 days and have installed a total of 536. Frankly this stinks of fraud.

Jane Franklin

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:20:48 +0000

It’s a case of the good old Law of Unintended Consequences! The dry wells is like what happens at an oil field. The water is found, more wells (and occasional dry holes) are drilled, pump jacks are installed, production peaks and declines until the last play pump runs dry. It’s the area’s “peak water” syndrome!

Worse, as production declines, the adults force the kids to suck the last of the water out of the ground by having them turn the not so merry go round pump. Obviously, Steve Case never heard of “peak oil” and realize it’ll work the same with a town’s “peak water”.

To get new water, they’ll have to drill for artesian wells and hope for gushers. That’s assuming suitable geological formations exist…

By: Cassandra

Cassandra — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 01:49:04 +0000

Thanks for this story. Unfortunately it seems that such “one size fits all” approach is very prevalent today when it comes to western NGOs working on water issues in the developing countries. Its a pity because spending these resources on more community involvement in the planning stages would be so much more beneficial.

By: Karen

Karen — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:23:46 +0000

What a fascinating post! This is a great case study for how groundwater management intersects both science, policy and even human psychology.