Every child deserves safe drinking water — yet millions across Africa still live without it. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, only 36% of people have access to proper sanitation, and women and children walk an average of 5 km every day just to fetch water that is often unsafe to drink.
The result is devastating:
4,500 children die every single day from diseases linked to unsafe water and poor sanitation.
Schools without toilets or clean water force children, especially girls, to drop out.
Families lose income as illness keeps parents from working and children from learning.
This isn’t just a water crisis. It’s a health crisis, an education crisis, and a poverty trap.
Children under 5 are the most vulnerable — diarrhoeal disease from dirty water kills more young children than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined.
Women and girls carry the heaviest burden, walking long distances to fetch water instead of learning, working, or simply being children.
Communities are left stuck in a cycle of poor health, lost opportunities, and generational poverty.
Since 1996, Roundabout Water Solutions has been transforming lives through the PlayPump® system — a simple yet powerful innovation that uses the energy of children at play to pump clean borehole water for schools and communities.
Over 640 PlayPumps have already been installed across South Africa, Lesotho, and Malawi.
Every PlayPump provides tested, safe water that meets human consumption standards.
Our systems are low-maintenance, community-managed, and built to last — avoiding the problem of broken hand pumps across Africa.
When children play, water flows. It’s that simple.
Together, we can break the cycle of water poverty and give every child the chance to grow, learn, and thrive.
Every contribution brings clean water to a school or village.
Corporate sponsorships and CSR programs can make a lasting impact.
Share our mission with friends, family, and your networks.
We recently installed a PlayPump at Ntsoanatsatsi Edu Care Trust in the Free State The Trust teaches adults to grown vegetables, but also looks after 300 vunerable children. Ruth Butcher, from Mama’s Allicance, who bought the Trust’s water problems to our attention, has told us that after the PlayPump was installed that “the children cannot […]
We visited Vumatsepanang Day Care Center near Soshunguve. The PlayPump was installed in 2001 and is still used by the Center and the local community living close by. The owner, Pat, mentions in the video that the children no longer get sick, thanks to the PlayPump, whereas before, they often were sick from the bad […]
ROUNDABOUT WATER SOLUTIONS REPORT 2018 In 2018 Roundabout Water Solutions installed 18 new PlayPumps at rural schools in South Africa. The majority of these schools reported that their schools had been without reliable water for months, if not years. They could not afford to mend their broken pumps or pay for the electricity and they […]
