On January 31st, I started my (quite lengthy) trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia! While there, I will be visiting my friend (Mark) and helping out at International Development Enterprises (IDE) on a treadle pump project.

The situation: There are lots of poor farmers in Ethiopia. The weather limits their ability to grow crops. It is very rainy during the summer (July-September), but then very dry for the rest of the year. That means, if you don’t have a way to get water for your crops during the dry season, you are very limited in what you can grow to feed your family or to sell in the market.

The project I’ll be helping with is a redesign of treadle pumps. To pump water with it, the farmer “steps” up and down on the two foot treadles, like a stair-climber, and it pumps water from a well to a field. Using a pump can help farmers grow valuable fruits and vegetables during the dry season, when they can fetch a higher price at the market. This helps them earn more money to buy the things they need… additional food, clothes, school fees for their children, etc.

But there’s a problem: the pumps are heavy, difficult to operate, have to be imported (and a very expensive duty has to be paid on them), or simply don’t work very well. That’s where we come in.

Our project is to develop the treadle pump so that it works well, is affordable, and satisfies the farmers’ needs. That’s not an easy task… IDE chose to base its Technology Design & Development group in Ethiopia specifically because they knew it would be a challenge to make water technologies successful here. Mark has started with a “quick fix” adjustment of the pumps that the workshop partner (AMIO) already makes. They don’t work very well, so the goal is to improve quality and function as quickly as possible while they build the pumps.

More To Be Added Later...