On March the 21st the final six teams from an original pool of nineteen from  secondary schools in the Isle Of Man competed in the final of the One World Charity Challenge. The challenge gives students the opportunity to speak out for people in the developing world, by creating and delivering a presentation examining the work of a charity and the impact it has had on a young person.

A team from Queen Elizabeth II High School in Peel were kind enough to base their presentation on Pump Aid.

On the night, the judges all agreed that team members Alice Willoughby, Rachel Hopkinson, Alice Henderson and Gemma Yates (pictured above) had given an excellent analysis of the workings of Pump Aid.

In the presentation the team had to concentrate on four main areas. They had to show that they had looked at the work of the charity with a critical eye. They looked at the culture of the area in which the charity works and how this may affect the charities activity. presented a case study of a child that the work of the charity has effected in a positive way, and how their life as changed because of the work of the charity. Lastly they discussed how Pump Aid has worked to tackle the Millennium Development Goals.

The QE II team’s excellent work was rewarded with a £2000 donation to Pump Aid from the prize fund for which we are extremely grateful.

So, thanks to Team QE II for choosing Pump Aid. Your hard work helps us every day to deliver clean, safe and accessible water and sanitation in Sub-saharan Africa.

If you would like to make a donation to Pump Aid, please click here. For fundraising ideas, click here.

http://www.oneworldcharitychallenge.com/

“When a billion people in the world already live in chronic hunger and water resources are under pressure we cannot pretend the problem is ‘elsewhere’.”

This is the message behind UN World Water Day, 22^nd March 2012.  The aim of this year’s campaign is to highlight the link between population growth and water and agricultural resources. To:

• Encourage everyone to follow a healthier, sustainable diet
• Consume less water-intensive products
• Reduce the scandalous food wastage: 30% of the food produced worldwide is never eaten and the water used to produce it is definitively lost!
• Produce more food, of better quality, with less water

Pump Aid Malawi is proud to be supported World Water Day 2012. Learn more about this year’s campaign here

Since December 2011, Pump Aid has received over £11,000 in generous donations from our Christmas and Valentine campaigns.  Our online Valentine’s campaign also received a lot of support, including mentions on the Facebook and Twitter pages of Pump Aid’s ambassadors, including Grammy winning singer/songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae! A big thank you to all those who donated!

It’s been a busy few months for Pump Aid’s programmes in Malawi and Liberia.

In Liberia we have completed construction of sixty Elephant Toilets in the Careysburg area of Montserrado County. This means 640 beneficiaries enjoying safe and clean sanitation.

In Malawi we have provided a further thirty-nine Elephant Pumps to the district of Mchinji. These pumps service 915 housholds, a total of 4119 new people have acces to clean water in rural Malawi thanks to your generosity.

As the rainy season in Malawi draws to a close we are looking forward to getting back to identifying new sites for communities in desperate need of a safe and clean water supply.

In other news, Pump Aid has secured funding from the Japanese Embassy in Malawi towards the building of Elephant Pumps in the Kasungu region. Aspect Capital has generously agreed to fund the research and development of the next generation of Elephant Pump and charity: water™ continues to lend extraordinary support to our programme in Malawi. The leading international magazine for the water sector, Water and Wastewater International, from Pennwell publishers, has adopted Pump Aid as charity partner. An exciting new collaboration is being started up; we will keep you updated with developments.

This March the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF announced the Millennium Development Goal on the proportion of people who have access to safe drinking water has been reached.  Although this is fantastic news, 780 million people are still without access to an improved drinking source.

Pump Aid’s Director of Fundraising discussed the reality of the situation in sub-Saharan Africa with ‘Blue & Green Tomorrow’ about Pump Aid’s work on the ground with ‘projects for the poor, rural communities that are still without access to clean water, and will be for the foreseeable future because they are the people that that are hardest to reach”. Click here to read more.

In April, Pump Aid will be exhibiting in Bournemouth as the guest of Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland (RIBI) at their annual conference. Pump Aid will, along with other Rotary-supported charities and projects, participate in the special Rotary Showcase exhibition held in the Bournemouth International Centre that opens to the public for three days on Friday 16th April. 
We are looking forward to meeting the expected two thousand delegates to discuss their past and future fundraising efforts.

Last month, Tracy Hauver wanted to make a difference, and luckily for us, she decided to support Pump Aid. Tracy wrote:

I am very excited to be able to help raise funds and awareness for the amazing work being undertaken by Pump Aid. My project, ‘A Thousand Cranes for Pump Aid’ is starting on February 5th 2012. I have four Japanese ladies coming to my home to teach group of American women (and myself!) how to fold origami cranes. We will then continue to make origami cranes until we reach 1000.

Tracy and her friends have been hard at work since then. So far they have folded 550 cranes and show no signs of slowing down.

In Japan, the Crane symbolizes hope. Based on an ancient Japanese legend, anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes, which are then strung together (senbazuru), will be granted a wish.

Our wish is to see the number of people dying from preventable diseases caused by a lack of access to unclean water decline.

For every £1 donated to this project, one of our cranes will be strung to a piece of string. We must make and string together 1000 cranes in total to complete the senbazuru. 1000 cranes = £1000 … it’s that simple.

We are immensely grateful to Tracy and her friends and wish them well for their final push to finish ’A Thousand Cranes for Pump Aid’.

Minasan, gambatte!*

As Tracy says, it is simple, but it’s also incredibly effective. If you too would like to support Pump Aid, you can, by making a direct donation towards Pump Aid’s work to deliver clean water and adequate sanitation or by visiting our Fundraising ideas page on our website.

*Good luck everyone in Japanese

Last year Elinat Jonathan, 28, used to collect all the water needed for herself, her husband, her four sons, her daughter and two of her sister’s children, every day, from an open well using just a rope and bucket. Elinat told Pump Aid that not only was this hard work but there was also a serious health issue during the rainy season when dirty runoff water would fall into the open well.

As a family we doubted about safety of water from this well as it had an offensive smell and looked cloudy

Elinat also told Pump Aid that last year there had been three incidences of children falling into the well.

Now Elinat and the rest of Eliamu village have got safe access to clean water, through the installation of an Elephant Pump. The villagers also received sanitation and health training from Pump Aid, helping the village households to better understand hygiene and sanitation practices. Elinat and her husband Joseph also managed to convince 2 other households to help build a toilet, to help ensure a clean environment surrounding the pump.

Pump Aid’s mission is to enable as many people, families and villages with safe access to clean water. If you would like to join us on our mission, please donate, sign up to our newsletter or social media networks  today. Together we can make a difference.

This Valentine’s Day we want people to use Facebook and Twitter to #showthelove by donating to Pump Aid.

On Tuesday 14^th February, Pump Aid is doing a Twitter and Facebook campaign called #showthelove. The idea is that supporters will donate to Pump Aid on Valentine’s Day and their chosen Valentine will receive a ‘tweet’ from Pump Aid or a message on our Facebook page.

“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water”. W.H. Auden

Want to #showthelove to a special someone this year by doing something bit different?

This Valentine’s Day you can give the gift of clean water……

The mechanism of this campaign is simple.

1)     Make an online donation to Pump Aid between now and the 14^th February

2)     Then Tweet @PumpAid or direct message Pump Aid’s Facebook with the name of your special someone and their Twitter handle if they have one.

3)     On the 14^th February, Pump Aid will then send your Valentine a tweet. e.g. “@MrPumpAid a secret admirer wants to #showthelove to you today by supporting @PumpAid on your behalf. Happy Valentine’s day!” Or we can post a message on our Facebook page.

With this donation, you are helping Pump Aid to provide clean water for rural communities in Africa.

Valentine Challenge

To help Pump Aid #showthelove to as many people as possible this Valentine’s Day we’d LOVE it if you could get other people with lots of followers (for example celebrities) to share this campaign by re-tweeting or sharing Pump Aid’s posts and messages.

Also, one lucky couple, chosen at random, will receive a little Valentine token courtesy of Pump Aid!

Thank you for your support and have a great Valentine’s!

To learn more about Pump Aid’s work sign up to our e-newsletter and join us on our social media networks

Wednesday 8th February 2012

170,000 people have now signed up to take part in the World Walks for Water and Sanitation in March! They will be calling on their Development and Finance Ministers to attend the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) High-Level Meeting on the 20th April in Washington DC and take action to end the water and sanitation crisis.

Currently the EU is not a member of the Sanitation and Water for All partnership (SWA), although several EU members states are. But with a big Europe Aid budget we all think they should join. Their budget for WASH should be much bigger, and they should coordinate their aid far more.

They do have a budget for water and sanitation, and we’d like them to show more global leadership, and to take part in this major event. The results could be that the High Level Meeting is more successful in achieving change, that aid is better targetted for the countries and communities that need it most, and that the EU take an active part in the national SWA partnerships – and as a result, that millions more people have access to water and sanitation

It would be a real coup if the EU changed its mind and joined the SWA and attended the High Level Meeting in Washington in April – this is where you come in!

Can you help End Water Poverty put the pressure on the key man – European Commissioner for Development, Andris Piebalgs?

This week Pump Aid’s Chief Executive, Gwen Vaughan, co-signed a letter  from 17 European organisations to the Commissioner. You can download and read the letter from here.

Here are two suggested actions:

1. Could you, or your organisation, also write a short letter to the Commissioner?

2. Could you Tweet the Commissioner on Wednesday 8th February, and encourage others to tweet too? It doesn’t matter if you are not based in the EU! All tweets will help!

We’re aiming for a thousand tweets during the day! Can you help us achieve this target and make sure that the Commissioner knows we are serious about ending the water and sanitation crisis?!

Suggested tweets (with your/your organisation’s @name added) are:

@APiebalgsEU Will you be attending the Sanitation and Water for All High Level Meeting in Washington in April?

@APiebalgsEU Please take action on the global water crisis and attend the April SWA High Level Meeting. Thanks!

@APiebalgsEU 884 million people don’t have clean water – can the EU take the lead on tackling this global crisis? #waterwednesday

You can also use #walkforwater to tell us and the Commissioner why you are taking part in the World Walks for Water and Sanitation next month and what you are calling for!

Two volunteer opportunities at Pump Aid are available from now. We need two volunteers to help us with our Walking for Water campaign between now and March 2012.

If you are interested please email a copy of your CV to fundraising@pumpaid.org.