 HIPPO ROLLER |
What CEO Kigge Hvid and INDEX:Award Exhibition curator Niels Jarler call a "classic Design to Improve Life" is all about getting that vital water home.WATER WORKSIn some parts of the world water is not a commodity, but luxury goods that you have to work very hard to lay hands on. Very often women have to walk a very long way to transport the water to the home, and it is traditionally done by carrying the water in buckets on your head. One of the first INDEX:Award nominations to reach the then-newly-formed jury for consideration in 2005 was the Hippo Roller, a direct answer to this problem. Hippo Roller from a distance looks a bit like a push lawnmower. It's made up of a large cylindrical plastic tank, which serves as the wheel of the device – and holds 200 pounds, or 90 kilos, of water, enabling users to transport water for an entire village in one trip to the spring. Because of the long handle fastened to it, the user, however, feels none of that weight. Even a child can comfortably and safely push it along and the weight will feel like no more than 22 pounds, or 10 kilos. A Hippo Roller costs US$100 to manufacture, including shipping to its place of use. HippoRoller.org reports that a unit normally has a useful life of about five to seven years. The name, of course, is as natural as the logic behind this elegant solution to a problem. In Africa, where the design originates, the water-loving hippo is as bulbous a creature as the roller is. Early recipients of the design gave it this name, themselves. The Hippo Roller, however, has a very serious role to play in current conditions in the southern part of Africa. The United Nations has reported in early 2009 that at least 978 people died in a cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe that left another 60,000 in danger of infection if clean water wasn't reaching the widest possible population. The Web site HippoRoller.org reports that Pick n Pay, a supermarket chain in South Africa, moved into action with the Red Cross, seeing that Hippo Rollers were moved out to the threatened regions, along with purification solutions – to be sure the clean water was transported correctly and the cholera outbreak contained. And fortunately this Design to Improve Life Classic is in regular motion for improvements, distribution and higher impact. Project H made it a hallmark project and work hard to update the design and the distribution of Hippo Roller. Today, with INDEX:, the AIGA and Aspen organizations all working on a worldwide challenge to young designers for "Designing Water's Future," the movement of clean water safely, healthily to the right places remains a critical feature of conditions in the developing world. The Hippo Roller it's clearly winning its battle for many who need it daily.
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