Most playground roundabouts spin freely once they’ve gained sufficient momentum – that’s what makes them fun. But in order to pump water, PlayPumps need constant force, and children playing on them would quickly become exhausted. According to the UNICEF report, children sometimes fell off and broke limbs, and the spinning motion made some of them vomit. In one village local children were paid to ‘play’ on the pump. Much of the time, women of the village ended up pushing the roundabout themselves – a task they found tiring, undignified and demeaning.
