Hand‑cranked Divya washing machine cuts labor by 75%

In a small village in South India, Navjot Sawhney, a former Dyson engineer, noticed a woman named Divya spending up to 20 hours a week hand‑washing clothes. Seeing how this unpaid labour affected her life, he set out to create a device that would spare women from such drudgery. The result is the Divya, a hand‑cranked washing drum that can be wheeled and does not need electricity. By naming it after the woman who inspired the idea, Sawhney highlighted the personal impact of the design.

How the machine works

The Divya holds up to 7 kg (15.4 lb) of clothing and uses only 30 L (7.93 US gallons) of water. Turning the crank completes a wash in a quarter of the time it takes to hand‑wash, cutting labor time by 75 % and water use by 50 %. The unit is built for durability, with a life of five to ten years, and can be disassembled with only two tools. It arrives in a partially assembled box with step‑by‑step instructions, making it easy to use in households and shared spaces.

Since its launch, the Washing Machine Project has supplied the Divya to more than 105,000 people across Iraq, Lebanon, Mexico, Uganda and the United States. The organisation partners with agencies such as the UNHCR, Oxfam and Plan International to distribute the machine free of charge in humanitarian settings. It has carried out ethnographic studies in 13 countries and interviewed over 3,000 families to ensure the design meets local needs, and it aims to reach a million users by 2030.

Future work focuses on making the Divya easier to maintain and use. Planned upgrades include a built‑in scrub surface, a wider opening for bulky items, faster drainage and stronger wheels. The project also seeks to develop local manufacturing, maintenance and shared‑access models in India so that communities can keep the machine in operation long after delivery.