African Design Magazine February 2015 | Page 18

Help fund the brilliant Warka Water tower Water is the source of life. It is so fundamental to our lives that we take it for granted. But in some areas of the world, water shortage is an acute and a real problem. Many rural villages in Africa lack the simple water infrastructure to fulfil basic needs. The Warka Water tower is a brilliant design that can pull pull drinking water out of thin air, providing an affordable and effective solution to chronic water shortage worldwide—if it’s successfully funded. To help fund their pilot project in Ethiopia, the international Warka Water team just launched a Kickstarter - and they need your help. This is their plea: “Visiting small isolated communities up on high plateau in the North East region of Ethiopia, we witnessed this dramatic reality: the lack of potable water. The villagers live in a beautiful natural environment but often without running water, electricity, a toilet or a shower. To survive here, women and children walk everyday for miles towards shallow and unprotected ponds, where the water is often contaminated with human and animal waste, parasites, and diseases. They collect the water using dry carved pumpkins and carry the water back in old plastic containers, which are extremely heavy.” “Recent studies show that only 34% of Ethiopia’s population has access to an improved water supply. This implies that approximately 60 million people lack safe water.
To help improve this dramatic situation, we made it our mission to find a solution and help these people with Warka Water (WW): An environmentally, socially and financially sustainable solution to potable water. Warka Water is an alternative water source to rural population that faces challenges in accessing drinkable water. It is first and foremost an architecture project. WW should not be considered as the solution to all water problems in developing countries but rather as a tool that can provide clean water in selected areas, particularly in mountainous regions where conventional pipelines will never reach and where water is not available from wells. These remote communities, often with limited financial means, struggle to find reliable supplies of clean water for the people, the animals and for agriculture. WW is designed to be owned and operated by the villagers, a key factor that should help guarantee the success of the project. WW not only provides a fundamental resource for life – water – but also creates a social place for the community, where people can gather under the shade of its canopy for education and public meetings. AD Pledge your support here 18 africandesignmagazine.com