[ti:The Importance of a Simple Water Pump] [ar:v] [al:Development Report] [by:51VOA.COM] [00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English [00:03.30]Development Report. [00:05.19]A simple water pump is helping [00:08.14]to improve the lives of poor families [00:11.43]in several Asian and African countries. [00:15.79]The treadle pump is based [00:19.38]on a design developed [00:21.14]in the nineteen seventies [00:22.92]by Norwegian engineer Gunnar Barnes. [00:26.72]It can be made locally. [00:29.21]A group based in the United States,IDE, [00:33.69]International Development Enterprises, [00:36.52]has created programs [00:38.61]in different countries. [00:40.85]The program in India [00:42.65]won an Ashden Award [00:44.93]in two thousand six [00:46.64]for using local sources [00:48.88]of energy to improve quality of life. [00:52.71]Last year the Bill [00:54.96]and Melinda Gates Foundation [00:57.14]awarded IDE twenty-seven million dollars. [01:01.76]The money is to be used [01:04.28]to expand small irrigation projects [01:07.72]to the other half [01:09.32]of India's twenty-eight states. [01:12.41]The treadle pump is easy to build [01:15.84]from bamboo or other wood [01:18.39]and two metal cylinders with pistons. [01:22.82]The pistons go up and down as a person stands [01:27.10]on lever devices -- treadles [01:29.78]-- and uses a natural walking motion. [01:33.22]How many hours a day the pump needs [01:37.00]to be operated depends on the season [01:39.84]and how much water is needed for crops. [01:44.22]It could be two hours a day. [01:46.65]It could be seven hours a day. [01:49.30]Small children sometimes stand [01:52.59]with their parents on the treadles. [01:55.38]Everyone in the family [01:57.47]can take turns operating the pump. [02:00.72]The Acumen Fund is a nonprofit group [02:04.64]that invests in business projects [02:07.23]to fight poverty. [02:09.28]It studied the effects of treadle pumps [02:12.91]in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. [02:16.39]Uttar Pradesh has three treadle pump [02:20.28]manufacturers and more than [02:22.71]seventy-three thousand pumps. [02:25.65]Acumen reported that families [02:28.89]using them ate more vegetables, [02:32.43]because they were able to grow more [02:34.62]to eat and to sell. [02:37.01]Many of these families also drank more milk, [02:41.44]because they bought a cow [02:43.58]with their added earnings. [02:46.06]Men with treadle pumps often no longer have [02:50.24]to leave the farm to seek extra work in cities. [02:54.77]The pumps can also improve education. [02:58.86]Farmers often use their extra earnings [03:02.77]to buy books for their children [03:04.91]or to pay for schooling. [03:07.50]A farmer in Zambia said he hoped [03:11.38]to have enough money in three years [03:13.87]to buy a diesel-powered pump. [03:17.51]Then he could grow more crops [03:19.85]over a larger area. [03:22.34]But the world economic crisis has [03:26.03]had an effect on some farmers. [03:28.56]IDE executive director Zenia Tata says [03:33.44]some who were able to buy diesel pumps now [03:37.92]do not enough money to buy fuel. [03:42.01]So they are using their treadle pumps again. [03:45.50]And that's the VOA Special English [03:49.78]Development Report, written by Karen Leggett. [03:53.88] I'm Steve Ember.