Maputo — About 40,000 pupils in Mozambican schools will benefit from clean drinking water, under a modern water supply system, presented in the southern city of Matola on Monday by a partnership that brings together the Mozambican Ministries of Education and of Public Works, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organisation, and a private Dutch company, TNT.

The initiative uses pumps that are linked to playground merry-go-rounds. As the children play on the merry-go-round, they turn it, which pumps up water.

A press release issued by the partnership on Monday states that the merry-go-round pumps are part of the broader "Flourishing Schools" programme, initiated with a grant of 444,000 US dollars from TNT.

The first pump was inaugurated in the Intaca Primary School in Matola. The Ministers of Education and Public Works, Aires Ali and Felicio Zacarias, attended the ceremony, and stressed the government's commitment to attain the Millennium Development Goals (set by the UN's Millennium Summit in 2000) in the areas of education, and access to clean water and decent sanitation.

"The objective is to supply all our schools with water, and this programme is an important step in that direction", said the two Ministers.

WFP representative Angela Van Rynbranch said on the occasion "working in partnerships is essential when we want to help the education and water sectors in Mozambique, which need to recover after suffering so much during the war".

The "Flourishing Schools" programme intends to provide 60 schools in rural areas of southern and central Mozambique with drinking water and sanitation.

In the initial phase, 30 merry-go-round pumps will be installed in primary schools in Maputo, Gaza and Inhambane. 30 schools in the central provinces of Manica and Sofala will receive conventional hand pumps.

"Access to clean water and sanitation", said UNICEF representative Leila Pakkala at the Matola ceremony, "is a decisive factor for keeping children at school and helping them learn about a healthy environment".

Under this initiative, which also enjoys support from the World Bank, UNICEF is taking care of the installation of latrines and giving lessons in hygiene, while the WFP and TNT deal with drilling boreholes for water.