Smoke costs 1.9 million lives a year, nearly double that of malaria. One of the leading causes of death for women and small children. And I'm not talking about cigarette smoke. Across Africa, millions of women in rural areas spend hours every day exposed to the smoke from their cooking fires. Inhaling of smoke causes lung and heart diseases and many rural people die, probably not even knowing why. Other than that, forests are disappearing because of the amount of wood needed to fuel these cooking fires.
Recently I have been getting involved with a company called 'Global Eco projects' that has developed a cooking stove that needs significantly less wood and at the same time greatly reduces carbon emissions.
The distribution of the stoves has started recently in the OR Thambo District Municipality of the Eastern Cape (which is where I am) with an initial pilot project of 30 000 stoves. I've had the privilege to join Kate (SA Operations Manager for Cookstoves for Africa) on some home visits to see how the people are getting on with the new stoves. The feedback is indeed very positive and people have already been using much less wood than before. The 'istovu' also seems to be replacing the paraffin stoves that are used in most homes.
This is a very exciting project that is still going to save many lives as well as many trees!
Using the new cook stove
the 'istovu'
On a home visit with one of the new users of the stove
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