In 2013, SonSet Solutions designed a portable tripod to safely install hand pumps in water wells. This was used in partnership with a clean-water ministry called Design Outreach (DO) to install a water pump in Zolomondo, Malawi. Previously, many people in this village died because of unsafe water, which they had traveled up to 10 kilometers to collect. Now, there is a source of safe, clean water right in their village.
A LifePumpLink™ unit, developed in collaboration between DO and SonSet Solutions, was installed in Zolomondo in 2019. Since then, DO has received detailed collection data from this pump monitor. According to this data, the pump is used an average of 14 hours per day, and the handles have turned over 55 million times since the unit was installed!
It was this data, as well as years of first-hand documentation, that established credibility between DO and Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera when they met in 2022. DO was able to validate their claims about the uptime and performance of the LifePump and show the president the value of their work.
Greg Bixler, CEO of Design Outreach, described their meeting by saying, “We were able to show President Chakwera and his staff the children thriving in Zolomondo today who might not be here had it not been for the LifePump installed there … We’ve been able to watch these children grow up, and President Chakwera understood why this accomplishment was so meaningful for Zolomondo and the country of Malawi.”
To date, DO has installed 262 LifePumps globally and is now looking at scaling up to 1,000 over the next few years, with the majority in Malawi. SonSet Solutions partners with ministries like Design Outreach, helping ensure access to clean water and the gospel for those who need it most.
By Bryan Jackson, May 2023