FORT WAYNE – The fresh water table in Africa can be as deep as 300 feet or more – deeper than most wells in America – and difficult, if not impossible, to reach. Strataflo, a Fort Wayne maker of check valves used in well pumps, has begun collaborating with Design Outreach, a non-profit humanitarian engineering organization that is developing a pump to be used in Africa, to address the problem. “In 2012, a friend of one of our engineers introduced us to Design Outreach, who was searching for a valve to use in its deep-well pump system. We believe that God brought us together and we were thankful for the opportunity to serve in this manner,” Andy Warner, Strataflo president and general manager, said in a release from the company. The new LifePump is designed to reach water at depths of over 300 feet and provides African villages a higher success rate of drilling into a suitable water table, according to the release. The system includes a 2-inch, lead-free Strataflo foot valve at the bottom of the well, which ensures that water is immediately available once the well is initially primed. “That’s life-changing for a village when you consider the challenge of pumping water from 300 feet below every time you needed it,” said Warner. World Vision has also collaborated with Design Outreach and private donors to help fund and promote the “Hundred Pump Project” with a goal of installing 100 LifePumps in five African countries before the end of 2015. “We donated our valves to the project during the pump’s initial building and trial phases” said Warner. “Now that the pumps are being funded through World Vision and the Hundred Pump Project, we provide our valves at a generous discount.”
