It looks like hard work but it's not as hard as walking for an hour, filling from an open, dirty well and walking back another hour.

Oxfam funds a variety of pumps for different environments: some need to be dug 20 metres deep (all by hand, and the local workers/beneficiaries are usually paid with food), some are modest treadle pumps which suck up water from nearby rivers (see next page).

The changes that water pumps bring may not be obvious, viz:

• They give women (the water-carriers) up to two extra productive hours a day
• The purity of the water save countless, mostly babies', lives
• They irrigate parched fields
• They bring more washing water, and therefore hygiene, to the home