Nav Sawhney was visiting India when he was inspired to make something for helping women in poverty.
The twenty-nine-year-old engineering student was placed in Kallipalayam, a small rural village, which had a limited supply of electricity and water.
Every day, as he passed Divya, his next-door neighbor, he would see her bent over a bucket, scrubbing dirty clothes. The two chatted one day and Divya showed him her hands covered in rashes and told him that her back would hurt daily.
This inspired Nav to be creative and find out a solution. A washing machine would definitely solve thirty-year-old Divya’s problem but due to irregular electricity, a washing machine would be of no use.
Nav found out that 70% of people in the world do not have access to electric washing machines and he realized if he made a low-cost machine that runs without electricity for Divya, it would help her a lot.
During his time in the village, the two became good friends and when he told her about his idea, her eyes lit up. When Nav saw the mother of two strugglings, he was reminded of his childhood in London.
His father died due to heart failure and her mother was left alone to take care of the three children. This happened when Nav was 8.
He recalled that his mother used to toil away all day and when she returned home from her work in the civil service, Mohini would get busy with cleaning, cooking, and laundry to do. Nav noted that although the three children tried to help their mother, they were too young to do so.
Nav’s father was an engineer and Nav had been interested in machines and how things work from his childhood.
After pursuing engineering from London’s Queen Mary University, he joined Engineers Without Borders, which is an organization that encourages people to figure out solutions to the hardships of people in the world.
It was through this organization that he met Divya and decided to make a hand-crank washing machine. Then, along with a team of specialists and engineers, he built a prototype.
Nav also visited Iraq as a part of his research and found out that the people desired a machine that would not require a lot of water, electricity, bending, and interaction with soap. The desirable features for them would be portability, lightweight, and bigger capacity.
Then, he was able to make the washing machine from plastic and wood costing only £24. This machine has a capacity of 5kg as well as uses only 10 liters of water in each cycle. A normal machine uses 30 liters. His invention is going to change the lives of these people significantly.
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