Dear Elisabeth,
thank you for your questions, i will answer next to them.

How does your "humanitarian arm" work? - We work with private sponsors, schools, corps that want to practice CSR

I gather you are a small company in Australia. - Yes with big ambitions to change the hygiene situation of the billions of people with no access to a personal tap.

Your product normally costs 25 A$. Not much for an Australian but a lot for e.g. a village person in Rwanda. - Obviously, any product shipped individually to Rwanda would be impossible as shipping costs alone would be prohibitive. But there is an economy of scale, the price for 1 is different from a volume order of 1000+ units, where the price comes right down.

How does the "donate" button on your website work? - Any funds received from donations go into a fund to supply SpaTAPS to schools we work within the Pacific region or Kenya.

Have you been successful in partnering with any of the international NGOs or aid agencies to supply this to people in developing countries? - We have some NGO partners but we are always seeking new partners that want to instantly solve the handwashing problem if you have any contacts we can approach we would be very appreciative.

How long has your company been around for? 4 years

Does the plastic last a long time, even in very harsh climate conditions? Its not made of plastic, its made of high quality food and water safe silicone, its sqaushy to touch and if used corectly will last a lifetime, its also UV stable.

Please take a look at our work in the Solomon Islands for global handwashing day and see for yourself how effective this device is for schools living through water scarcity. a youtube link is here:



This device makes handwashing fun, therefore children want to wash their hands without being asked to do it. Everywhere we have installed the SpaTap it has made a massive impact straight away. This device needs to be scaled as so many people are in need of it. Below is a report we have made for Global Handwashing Day.

SpaTap portable tap upcycles virtually any bottle and turns it into a water saving, flow controllable tap that can dispense water in 3 ways. The modes are minimal water mode, free flow mode, and big wash. SpaTap company manufactures the SpaTap portable tap for the outdoor recreation market and humanitarian aid.

Our work in the Solomon Islands for Global Handwashing Day consisted of visiting 5 schools in and around Honiara, its capital.
There is a chronic water scarcity in this area, the average ratio of Students to taps available for handwashing, drinking and general purposes is:
1000 children with 1 tap and 2 toilets.
The 1 tap is also used by members of the community that come into the school for their needs as well. This 1 tap was used for all hand washing practices, before dinner time, after toilet breaks and medical emergencies. Evidently, this one tap was under serious usage and itself looked dirty and contaminated. Its effectiveness for hygienic hand washes for all 1000 children was not actually possible, and not happening at all.

Teachers commented to me that they noticed that whole classes would go down sick at the same time and children would also go home early losing vital education time because of the lack of access to hand washing facilities.

Enter SpaTap Portable Tap.

A handwashing workshop was provided to celebrate the Global Handwashing Day and a SpaTap portable tap was donated to every classroom (approx 30 students) The workshop teaches the students and teachers how to operate the SpaTap, how to maintain it and how to install it. The installation and maintenance of a SpaTap is so easy to do that a 5-year-old child can do it in only 10 seconds. Please view our video to see this in action.

Also, a system to encourage this handwashing behaviour change is also put in place. The teacher of the classroom draws up a roster that the children use to take turns with maintenance and refilling the bottle. 2 children per day are chosen to maintain the SpaTap.
Also, a handwashing champion is selected to monitor behaviour, handwashing technique and water usage. These positions rotate and are displayed on a classroom poster. This system is designed to teach the students how to maintain and operate a SpaTap, whilst also practising good hand washing behaviours.
please view our video to see this in action.

Schools we visited often weren't connected to any sort of mains pressurised water supply and therefore had to rely on rainwater tanks, wells or rivers. Some schools were also disconnected from the town supply and had no water at all for months.

To change the handwashing behaviour of the school, a student attaches a 1.5-litre bottle of water to a SpaTap. A bar of soap is placed on the base of the inverted bottle, which makes a convenient soap caddy. The handwashing station is hung somewhere suitable for the handwashing and students line up to take it in turns to wash their hands.

Brilliant Star School in Henderson Village is very rural, it has approx 200 children, 1 rainwater tank and tap, 1 well and 2 toilets. This is a very water scarce school. The students and teachers there wanted to save as much water as possible, so they did an experiment and achieved 67 handwashes with soap out of 1.5 litres of water using the minimal water mode of the SpaTap. This is incredible water saving.

The children, after seeing how easy it is to install, then proceeded to install a further 10 SpaTaps around their school. This Immediately changed the access availability of taps and of course, reduces the chances of cross-contamination because now there is no need to share a tap with 170 other children in the school.

The older students also installed a 19-litre bottle to a Coconut Palm tree that was outside the 2 school toilets. Prior to this there was NO dedicated tap for use after the toilet. The students were reluctantly allowed to use the rainwater tank tap, but this was mainly used for drinking purposes. The 19-litre bottle and SpaTap together will supply over 1500 handwashes with soap. The students ingeniously converted a handle grip on the bottle into a soap caddy (you can see this on the video) and now they have a suitable handwashing station outside the toilet block that was installed in 30 seconds. Job done!

The principal mentioned to me that on the first day it was instant impact, a game changer for his school, by the third day the principal told me that the hand washing culture of the school had completely changed.

WHY? because now the children have a tap to call their own. there is no need to queue behind thousands of fellow students just to wash your hands.

The children want to be clean and healthy, I personally witnessed some of the students doing handwashes with soaps that would make a surgeon scrubbing up for an operation smile.

The sad truth is they in no infrastructure and there never will be. There is no mains connected water supply with 70 taps and water fountains for the children like what we have here in Australia. The children and teachers in the schools I visited had normalised the 1000:1 ratio.

To put it simply there are no taps for handwashing, and the schools we visited were not in a position financially to ever make that a reality. Now, for the first time, the students have the chance to wash their hands regularly and achieve good handwashing practices.

Currently, we are seeking partners that would like to support our work in schools, communities and medical centres. The truth is everybody has the right to access their own personal tap for their own personal hygiene, SpaTaps aim is to make that happen.

If you would like to know more follow the links below:

You can view a video of Brilliant Star School Here:
Youtube
Facebook facebook.com/spatap/videos/1057006531107616/
You can view our work here:
www.spatap.com/humanitarian
You can contact us here:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Looks interesting!
How does your "humanitarian arm" work? I gather you are a small company in Australia. Your product normally costs 25 A$. Not much for an Australian but a lot for e.g. a village person in Rwanda. How does the "donate" button on your website work?
Have you been successful in partnering with any of the international NGOs or aid agencies to supply this to people in developing countries?

How long has your company been around for? Does the plastic last a long time, even in very harsh climate conditions?

Regards,
Elisabeth

SpaTap Is 1st prize winner of Water4Africa Standard Bank 2015 and the Australian Aid Humanitarian Supplies Challenge 2017.

SpaTap does NOT use or need pressured mains water connection, it attaches to and converts bottles into a mobile tap or handwashing station.

It can be quickly and easily installed anywhere to provide an instant tap or an eco shower. SpaTap saves an enormous amount of water, is portable and also be very easy to use. 1.5 liters of water will dispense over 15 minutes (approx) 15 liters dispenses over 2hours 26 mins.

SpaTap can dispense water in 3 different MODES. The water flow is controllable and measured and can be adjusted depending on the user's requirements and the bottle being used.

It's easy to operate, simply insert the neck of a bottle inside the SpaTap and create an air tight fit. There are 3 different size internal flanges that can accommodate most bottle sizes.

Tighten the hanging cord with the toggle that encapsulates the bottle to secure it in place. This is where a soap caddy is formed, the soap bar is within easy 1 arm access and naturally dries after use reducing germs and contaminants.
A video explains this here:
The SpaTap can either be hung from a tree or a tent pole or it can handheld. Take the washing power of SpaTap to wherever it is needed then simply either give it a gentle squeeze, pull the bung out of the air inlet valve or pump the whole SpaTap to dispense the water.

Reinserting the bung into the air inlet valve the water will stop flowing.

For more information: SpaTap.com Humanitarian Page

Used by a multitude of people, including, campers, hikers, festival goers, film crews, gardeners, medics, busy mums, dog walkers and many more in over 30+ countries. SpaTap is now entering and changing the living conditions of people living in hygiene poverty with its instant, portable ultralight tap.

We have wash projects in Fiji, Kenya, Solomon Islands, Papa New Guinea Vanuatu, Nepal.

This is the low-cost answer to the handwashing problem.

SpaTap can be used communally or as a personal tap, it can be left in situ or moved inside a dwelling or hang outside a latrine.
We invite Any Questions you may have, and we also seek partners for Global hand-washing Day on October 15th, we are active members of the Global Handwashing Partnership and are plan events for this year.

We seek to partner with NGO's, Government Aid Agencies, Corporate Sponsors, Patrons, WASH Specialists,

SpaTap is ready to scale our mission is to make sure everyone has a personal tap for hand hygiene.
For more information you can check our web page: SpaTap.com Humanitarian Page

For more information you can check our web page: SpaTap.com Humanitarian Page

Or ask inside this forum, I am happy to answer any questions you may have.