Amazing water wheel helping women

June 5, 2017 Innovation Valli Sarvani No comments

The daily lives of women in smaller villages all over India can be filled with tedious, grueling work. Some of the worst of that work can be to acquire the most basic of human needs: water. This is usually done in miles-long walks to water wells, carrying pails to fill with liters of it.

Then, the women must go back home with the pails filled, and then repeat the process until the house has enough, which can take up to four hours. However, with the simple innovation of the water wheel, it has now become much easier for rural Indian women to fulfill their water needs.

The water wheel was introduced by Habitat Humanity in 2015 to five hundred villagers in Aurangabad. The device is a cylindrical plastic drum that can be rolled along the ground, thus, eliminating the physical strain experienced in carrying heavy metal pails filled with water.

The wheel makes it much easier for people to carry water from the nearest drinking source, since the container can simply be pulled or pushed along the ground. It also allows the water to be carried in one trip, since the drum can hold up to fifty liters of it.

The design build of the water wheel is a simple one, conceptualized for carrying water over rough terrains like the people living in these small, poorer villages.

The cylindrical drum, composed of food grade, human safe, high density polyethylene, is three to five times bigger than traditional water containers, and is fitted with a handle made from either plastic or metal to allow the user to push or pull the drum along the ground.

Not only have these small villages been mobilized by this innovative tool, but the water wheel has also empowered the women there.

Amazing water wheel helping women

Water collection was previously delegated as common woman work, but men now see that they must share the burden of it as well.

Habitat Humanity has since expanded their efforts beyond Aurangabad, providing hundreds more water wheels to families in Latur, Nanded, Osmanabad and Karjat. The success of this new tool has shown how something so simple can make such a big change.