Dublin nonprofit helps small-scale African farmers using old pool pumps

DUBLIN, Calif. (KGO) -- As you know, many aid organizations funnel money, food and medicine to some of the poorest regions of the world, but here's a story of a Northern California nonprofit that offers another way to help lift people out of poverty. It's simple technology with a big impact.

From his home in Dublin, Drew Felker is helping dramatically change the lives of small-scale farmers in Africa. Seventy percent small-scale farmers rely on seasonal unpredictable rainfall.

"No one had thought of combining a pool pump and what already exists in rural countries around the world, which is bicycles," Felker said.

Felker and a team of mostly volunteers are behind a nonprofit called Project 41. They're gathering pool pumps, many of them recycled and sending them to Uganda, Kenya and Ghana.

"You have a farmer, who right now is taking buckets [of water] out of a river and they're moving buckets all day long, and they can barely irrigate their fields, or they're waiting for rain to fall," he added.

Using a bicycle attached to the pump, farmers can now transfer 50 gallons of water a minute from rivers and lakes to fields.

Nana Bekoe-Sakyi is another volunteer from Ghana who has seen this simple tool increase a farmer's average monthly wage from $200 to $800.

"You can now send a child a school and hire someone to do what the child used to do. You're also able to buy things you can grow," Bekoe-Sakyi said.

Unlike traditional aid organizations that focus on donations, Project 41 helps farmers purchase the pumps to help build self-reliance.

"You increase the efficiency of a system. You help people do more, create more and everyone does better," Felker said.

So far, about 600 pumps and bike stands have been assembled and sold to farmers.