Project Name: Mahlangu Hand-washer
Project Type: (Choose one of the following)
5) industrial/product design
Please note: if you choose other, we will look closely to ensure it meets our criteria of honoring innovation in design. Please briefly explain why you feel it should be considered within the project description.
Project Mission/Goal: (Choose one of the following)
2) increase awareness of the environment and/or address climate change
3) respond to our growing need for clean water, power, shelter, healthcare, education
Please note: If you choose other, we will look closely to ensure it meets our mission. Please briefly explain why you feel it should be considered within the project description.)
Project Description: (Please enter about 3 paragraphs or 500 words, whichever is less)
Irene van Peer is a Dutch designer who, with a group of colleagues, has devised a clever method for turning empty plastic beverage bottles into hand-washing devices to help prevent the spread of disease in Africa. Van Peer realized the need for such a device while working on sanitation projects in South African townships; many of the township residents have difficulty washing their hands because they lack easy access to water. Van Peer and her colleagues began by having conversations about the idea with people, mostly women, in the townships. “For me it was important to listen to their problems and to come back with a solution they could make themselves,” she says.
Eventually, van Peer and her colleagues hit upon an ingenious design. It involves converting the cap of an empty bottle into a homemade tap. The cap is pierced and then a long, skinny cone made from a readily available material like cork is inserted. One end of a length of wire is pushed through the cone, and the other is wound around a weight, like a stone, to nestle in the palm of the hand. The bottle is held above the hand facing downward, and when the weight is pushed up, the water is released and trickles down the wire toward the weight. Used carefully, a one-liter bottle can perform up to 60 hand-washes.
After showing people in the townships how to use it, van Peer also left instructions to be passed on from person to person. She named it the Mahlangu after Johanna Mahlangu, a woman who told her she planned to make the hand-washers for her day care center for disabled children.
text from: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/magazine/14Ideas-Section2-C-t-007.html...
article by Alice Rawsthorn
Links and Captions: (Links to background information and Image Captions/Photo Credits)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/magazine/14Ideas-Section2-C-t-007.html...
http://irenevanpeerontwerpen.nl/index.htm
http://irenevanpeerontwerpen.nl/htm/health-and-care/mahlangu.htm
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Project Details: (Please complete as applicable)
Location: South Africa
Concept/Lead Architect(s)/Designer(s): Irene van Peer
Project Architect(s):
Year (s): 1999
Client: ICSID South Africa
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