I just got off the phone with Trevor, the founder of the remarkable social business called, PlayPumps. PlayPumps has an amazing business model. They use merry-go-rounds that are propelled by push power from children just like we had on play grounds in the 50’s and 60’s to drive a pump that brings up pure water from several hundred feet in the ground to a water tower to serve a village. This allows the women in the village to have fresh clean water so their children don’t die, and water to irrigate their highly productive gardens. PlayPumps off sets the cost of maintenance of these installations by selling advertising on large signs placed on the water tower. Truly amazing! They have PlayPumps in 4,000 villages throughout Africa.
I was talking to Trevor about what his goal was. What could he do in 10 years if he had unlimited funds? He said he was going to get back to me because we are going to try to find a cause-marketing partner that will get serious about pumping tens of millions of dollars into this sustainable solution. There are over 6,000 children that die every day and the vast majority die due to water born diseases or lack or hygiene because their water is polluted. If we could save just half the lives of these children how much would that be worth? I’ll keep you updated on how the search for a partner goes.
