Wellspring Africa
1621 Gryn Drive
IA 52246 Iowa City
United States
Contact person: Cliff Missen
+1 319 338-8542
missenc@wellspringafrica.org
http://www.wellspringafrica.org
Topics
- Aid for developing countries
- Educational policy/project
- Media project
- Volunteers are welcome.
About us
Wellspring Africa is a small non-profit organization that was founded to research and promote appropriate technology for water development in rural Africa.
Since 1984 we have been researching simple well drilling technology and training drillers. The well drilling technology we promote - hand-powered percussion drilling - dates back to 1100 B.C. and the drilling methods have been used successfully throughout history in China, Europe, and the Americas. Made by local craftspeople from locally-available scrap materials, the tools have proved to be cheap and very effective.
In 1985 Wellspring Africa volunteers spent nine months in Liberia, West Africa, training technicians in rural villages to drill deep wells. In 1999-2000 we trained drillers in central Nigeria.
Our goal is to promote these simple technologies so that the villagers themselves can become self-sufficient in creating their own water sources.
Activities:
• In 1985 Wellspring Africa volunteers spent nine months in Liberia, West Africa, training technicians in rural villages to drill deep wells.
• In 1999-2000 we trained drillers in central Nigeria.
• We have produced a manual and video to teach these water well drilling practices. These are available in traditional formats as well as on a CD.
• We have created a kit that contains all the "tricky bits" for making a percussion drill, packed to meet airline size and weight requirements.
• As well, we have collaborated with the Practica Foundation in the Netherlands to write another percussion drilling handbook as a part of their series on manual well drilling.
• We occasionally do demonstration projects to train more drillers. Our goal is to work with those who have a long-term commitment to building a sustainable small-scale well drilling industry.
• We have provided training materials to hundreds of drillers in virtually every African country, as well many others from Peru to the Czech Republic, oftentimes for free.
• We´ve been formulating new ideas for scaling water resource development to meet the still burgeoning demand.
We believe that the only way we are going to see broad-based and sustainable potable water development in the rural areas of lesser developed countries is through small scale technologies like the ones we are rediscovering, wherein the villagers themselves decide when and where and how the well is to be made and have the means to carry out their wishes themselves.
Cliff Missen is the Founder of Wellspring Africa.
For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.