Kenyans Benefit from Ingenious Water-Carrying Invention

For anyone who has experienced volunteering in Kenya, they will know how precious water is. In some areas clean water can be hard to access, but thanks to a new invention, the effort that some Kenyans will have to go through in future has changed. A simple yet effective water roller invention prevents these Kenyan women from having to transport the water on their heads or backs as part of their daily chores.

The praise goes to a 70-year old African-American inventor and businessman, Herman Bigham who is behind the ‘‘Tosheka Rolling Springs” water-carrying tool. 

When speaking about the innovation, Herman said: “It’s a system that we put together to be able to relieve women and children and the elderly from carrying water on their backs. It became very clear about the level of strain and physical handicap and injuries caused by doing this. And also, Kenya and Africa are so advanced now in so many ways and at the same time we still have women and children carrying water on their backs for 10, 20 kilometres”. 

A Useful Addition

Tosheka Rolling Springs presents people with the ability to transport as many as 15 jerry cans with minimal effort. It works by encapsulating containers in a roller that can then be pushed along like a wheelbarrow – over any terrain – and help to bring vital support for some of the in-need families in Kenya.  

These creative water rollers are made in Kenya and the materials are easy to come by too thanks to a combination of recycled materials, such as old tyres, and local wood.  

One of the biggest impacts that the water roller will deliver is an additional solution to the current void trying to be filled in the water access system. It supplements the ongoing efforts of some organisations by delivering a new way to get clean water to rural communities. This is achieved by lightening the burden that is bestowed on young children and elderly members of the families in these locations.  

The responsibility of collecting the water is both time-consuming, and, more importantly, extremely strenuous. On average, for just one family, 550lbs of water is carried from the tapped water source to their residence, and that has to be done every day! To accumulate this amount of water, it requires 12 trips each time. This means that for just one trip, 21kg of water has to be carried per person.  

Bigham discussed the benefits of the invention, saying: “It has a lot of advantages even though it is low tech. Its advantages are, the water container never comes in contact with the ground, therefore it’s preserved, it doesn’t become contaminated and it’s also extremely easy to transport, makes it easy to transport the water, whereas some of the systems, they carry more water, have a lot of problems with the containers being busted by the very rough terrain over which one has to travel”.  

Esther Muindi, a 26-year-old mother of two who is now using the system said that the Tosheka Rolling Springs has brought her some much-needed reprieve from the usual strenuous efforts of fetching water – something which many of us in the Western World take for granted. 

Muindi added: “Carrying water on my back is usually a heavy burden especially when I am pregnant. I sometimes need a lot of water, approximately 10 jerry cans; yet the water source is two kilometres away. Tosheka Rolling Springs enables me to transport 15 jerry cans with ease whilst carrying my child on my back”. 

The roller currently retails for around £45 which is financially out of reach for many of the people who would benefit from this tool the most. However, Bigham says he has plans to provide them at a lower cost as soon as he has established an updated manufacturing process that would see the rollers produced via moulding. 

At present, The World Health Organization states that 263 million people across the globe spend more than 30 minutes per trip merely to collect water. There’s some way to go to rectify this, but with ideas such as Herman Bigham’s, this will be reduced sooner rather than later.  

Watch how the Tosheka Rolling Springs system works in this video.

Image credit: Fauza Gila