The Sunday Mail
Tendai Chara
THE tip-tap, which is commonly referred to as “chigubhu gear,” has proved to be one of the more preferred devices adopted in the fight against the coronavirus.
A tip-tap is a simple, affordable and easy-to-use home-made water tap.
To make a tip-tap, one needs a clean plastic and transparent plastic container, two wooden sticks, which are dug into the ground and a string which works as a lever that one steps on to tilt the container, allowing sanitisers or water to pour out.
When it was first introduced in Zimbabwe some few years ago, the device was adopted as an affordable means of practising basic hygiene and sanitation.
With the outbreak of the coronavirus, the tip-tap has become an essential device for both rural and urban communities and has become one of the most widely-used household devices in the fight against Covid-19.
Sunday Mail Online recently caught up with Taurai Sinaro, a projects manager with LoveZimbabwe, a charitable organisation that was installing tip-taps for free in Goromonzi district.
Sinaro explained how a tip-tap functions: “This is a simple but very effective way of fighting the coronavirus. The mechanism requires one to step on the stick which is tied to the opening of the container. The container will then tilt in the direction of the user and sanitiser or water will come out, with the user washing the hands”.
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, LoveZimbabwe has installed more than 3 000 tip-taps in Goromonzi and Domboshava among other areas.
Prisca Dube, the Goromonzi district development co-ordinator, at whose offices a tip-tap was installed, said the device is a cheap, simple and handy device which every household must install.
“The chigubhu gear is one of the ways of fighting the coronavirus. It is simple, affordable and cheap to install. We are encouraging households to adopt this device as a way of fighting the coronavirus,” Dube said.
