The concept of the BluePUmp was originally developed in 2003 by the staff of the Rural Water Development (RWD) Program of the Diocese of Ngong and Kisii in Kenya under coordination of the Director of the RWD Program Paul van Beers.

The RWD Program was one of the largest water programs in Kenya. The program created over 1.500 water points (boreholes, dugwells and protected springs), 300 rainwater harvesting systems and over 16.000 latrines in Western Kenya.

In 2004 the Dutch funded RWD program finally stopped, but Paul van Beers further developed and and tested the concept in several African countries. The Bluepump is now fully developed and since 2010 on the market as an official new handpump, specifically for boreholes with deeper waterlevels, up to 80m.deep

BluePump solving handpump problems worldwide
One of the major problems with the standard handpump remained the many breakdowns, often resulting in abandoned handpump. The main problem identified is the fragile construction that cannot withstand the heavy daily burden of community use and the rubber seal of the piston, that needed to be replaced all the time. Handpumps therefore needed a lot of maintenance which becomes often to costly for the communities.

There were no reliable handpumps on the market that could deal with these problems in a simple way. Therefore the BluePump design as a low-maintenance handpump that should be very strong and not have these nasty rubber seals.

 

Field testing continued in 2005 and 2006
Additional field testing was done in 2005 in South Angola with the help of the staff of Abel Costa, the Director of the Provincial Water Department of the Huila Province and the financial support of Fermacom Ltd., in Lubango, Angola.

Based on the field test in 2005 and 2006 in Angola, a final draft product was further tested with several NGO's (CSC Water Development Project, Malawi; OXFAM in Kenya; Samarian Purse and Unicef in Mozambique) in several pilot projects, up to 96m deep.

 

Final model 2010
Although basically all pumps were performing fine, some final adjustments and improvements were made to make the pump even stronger, which are now standard in the 2010 model.

The BluePump design is owned and hosted by the FairWater Foundation who supervises the production and monitoring the performance in the field. FairWater has an active R&D program to update and improve the design whenever needed.

For more information about the FairWater BluePump contact FairWater.