A low-tech washing machine offers a way to wash where there is limited access to power and running water

The good neighbour who wants to iron out the problems of the weekly wash

With a plastic drum, plywood and a few secret components, a London-based engineer has created a rudimentary washing machine that he says will ease the workload for families with little power or water.

Nav Sawnhey has designed a £24 crank-handled machinefor people in places without reliable, affordable power.

Sawhney, 29, was inspired by a neighbour in India, where he volunteered for a year with Engineers Without Borders.

Based in the village of Kallipalayam, in Tamil Nadu, he started by making clean cooking stoves for people who otherwise had to use open fires.

He befriended Divya, a neighbour who enjoyed practising her schoolgirl English ; Sawhney helped her seven-year-old son study for exams when the sporadic electricity went out, using his mobile phone flashlight.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nav Sawnhey and Divya on his last day in India. Photograph: Oxfam

“She was spending up to 20 hours a week hand-washing her family’s clothes, and as a result had chronic back pain and sore hands from the detergent,” says Sawhney.

It reminded him of his mother and how hard she had worked while holding down a full-time job, especially after the death of his father, also an engineer. Sawhney came up with a plan for an affordable hand-crank machine. An electric one wasn’t viable – it would have been too costly, used too much water and required power that couldn’t be relied on.

After research in Iraq, Lebanon, the Philippines and Jordan, as well as India – he came up with a machine that uses only 10 litres of water a cycle, compared with 30 by a typical electric machine , crucial in places where water is short. It’s also made out of off-the-shelf components that are easy to replace.

With support from Oxfam and the Iraq Response Innovation Lab, 50 of Sawhney’s machines have been distributed there.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sawnhey with the first prototype. Photograph: Oxfam

Sawhney and his fellow volunteers won a grant from Bath University to help the project, and now says they have orders from Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, as well as from the UNHCR for refugees in Jordan.

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“Why should we stop at just washing machines?” says Sawhney, who works for Jaguar Land Rover. “I remember when Divya and her family had to consume all of the food of the day because they didn’t have refrigeration. I just want to keep creating solutions that help people.”

Sawhney named his invention after Divya.

Both shy and proud at the invention she inspired, Divya will have to wait until India’s coronavirus-closed borders reopen before she can test out the latest prototype.