After the devastating January 2010 earthquake, TWP was able to raise significant amounts of funds to support relief efforts, donating $30,000 to Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team for aid in the construction of a child-friendly space and school in Port-au-Prince and sending 1,776 Stove Tec Rocket stoves to the country, for distribution by partner International Lifeline Fund (ILF).
Since the end of the emergency relief phase, TWP has worked with ILF on developing a local charcoal stove design, intended for micro-entrepreneurial manufacture and dissemination during 2011. This stove, the Zanmi Pye Bwa (“Friend of the Trees”), has posted fuel-use reductions on par with many of imported stoves in Port-au-Prince, but can be produced at a lower cost with local skills and materials. Keep an eye on the ZPB project as it develops throughout 2011 and 2012!
The Zanmi Pye Bwa Cookstove Project in Haiti is a joint effort between Trees, Water & People (TWP) and International Lifeline Fund (ILF), two American-based nonprofit organizations. TWP has worked with ILF on developing a local charcoal stove design, intended for micro-entrepreneurial manufacture and dissemination during 2011. This stove, the Zanmi Pye Bwa (“Friend of the Trees”), has posted fuel-use reductions on par with many of the imported stoves in Port-au-Prince (40% reduction in charcoal use), but can be produced at a lower cost with local skills and materials.
Are you interested in contributing to this project? Click here to make a donation to the Zanmi Pye Bwa Clean Cookstove fundraiser.
The statistics are staggering: nearly 2 million people, mostly women and children, die each year from indoor air pollution. Imagine cooking over an open fire, all day long, inside your home. Cooking shouldn’t kill!
Cooking with wood over an open fire fills kitchens with smoke; smoke that contains dangerous levels of particulates and carbon monoxide. This heavy exposure has been likened to smoking five packs of cigarettes a day. Breathing the toxic smoke from open cooking fires can lead to acute respiratory illness, pneumonia, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Please visit www.treeswaterpeople.org to learn how we are working to reduce indoor air pollution in Central America and Haiti.
The child-friendly space at SINEAS IDP camp in Port-au-Prince.
It has been one year since the devastating 7.0 earthquake rocked the country of Haiti, killing some 230,000 people and displacing another 1 million. Today, Trees, Water & People (TWP) is reflecting on the past year in Haiti and looking forward to the future.
In the weeks and months following the earthquake, and continuing through the end of 2010, TWP received a tremendous outpouring of support for our efforts in Haiti. Now, we would like to share with you how these generous donations have made a real and lasting impact, as well as our plans for 2011.
Donated 1,776 fuel-efficient cookstoves to Haitian families, directly affecting over 16,500 lives (with an average family size of 6 people). This cookstove distribution project, part of a UN project run by ILF, will greatly reduce fuel costs, deforestation, environmental impacts, and injuries due to open-fire cooking. In addition, with a great need for clean water, these cookstoves allow families to prepare food safely, and boil water to reduce deadly water borne diseases such as Cholera.
Josanie LaFortune sits in front of her fuel-efficient cookstove at an IDP camp in Port-au-Prince.
Training programs funded by TWP soon after the quake led to the training of thousands of cookstove beneficiaries in IDP camps around Port au Prince. Every training session included an overview of the stove parts, stove use and maintenance, and the environmental, economic and social benefits of a fuel-efficient cookstove. Trainees also participated in a cooking demonstration, where each woman cooked a meal on their new cookstove.
TWP helped develop a monitoring and evaluation program for the cookstoves distributed. These stoves have been very well received due to the fuel-savings and safer cooking conditions they offer. In fact, through the monitoring and evaluation program, we have found that beneficiaries save over 50% on their average daily fuel expenditures with their new cookstove. As one woman commented:
“With my stove, I am able to purchase less charcoal and I help protect the environment….the stove program is helping us to rebuild our country so that Haiti can be more beautiful than before the earthquake.”
We funded our partner AMURT’s installation of the Integrated Healing and Wellness Center(IHEC) at the SINEAS Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Port-au-Prince. The IHEC consists of 11 pavilions and 22 classrooms, 10 composting toilets, 8 rainwater catchment systems, a reservoir, a composting site, a tree nursery, a permaculture demonstration site and organic garden. These child-friendly spaces gave 820 children the chance to attend preschool and after school programs, providing an important safe haven during a time of crisis. The vision for this center is that it can be replicated in other camps, with youth and women’s leadership as a main priority.
Working with the Haitian government, we participated in drafting the Haitian National Improved Stove Strategy with our partners from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Paradigm Project, and ILF. Working with the Haitian government’s Bureau of Mines and Energy (BME), we will continue to address the problems of deforestation caused mainly by charcoal production and fuel-wood consumption.
In 2010, TWP became a partner of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC). Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the GACC in New York City in September with a commitment to saving lives, improving livelihoods, empowering women, and combating climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean cookstoves. Since the launch, the Alliance has been working on activities that will help them achieve the goal of 100 million homes adopting clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels by 2020. Our international staff will be participating in two working groups for the GACC: “Reaching Consumers” and “Monitoring and Evaluation.”
Moving Forward in Haiti: 2011 Plans
Working with AMURT, who runs multiple tree nurseries throughout Haiti, we will continue to address the critical deforestation issue in Haiti. According to the Haitian Bureau of Mines and Energy, 75% of the energy consumed in Haiti comes from biomass in the form of wood and charcoal; 80% of this amount is used for cooking meals at the household level. Halting the severe deforestation in the country is a critical task, as the current rate of reforestation is only 26% of the rate of forest removal.
In 2011, with our partner organizations, we will undertake extensive research and development to continue the process of designing a best-fit cookstove for Haiti that can be produced in country, by Haitians, using local materials with an end-product that is economically accessible to those most in need.
With your continued support, TWP and partners will also continue the distribution of fuel-efficient cookstoves, as well as the training, monitoring, and evaluation process that is critical to the success of this program.
Thank you so much for your support of and compassion for the Haitian people!
Stuart Conway, TWP’s co-founder and International Director, and Sebastian Africano, TWP’s Deputy International Director, will serve on the “Reaching Consumers” and “Monitoring and Evaluation” Working Groups for the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves in New York City this September with a commitment to saving lives, improving livelihoods, empowering women, and combating climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean cookstoves. Since the launch, the Alliance has been working on activities that will help them achieve the goal of having 100 million homes adopt clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels by 2020.
One important step the Alliance has undertaken is the creation of nine working groups that will be charged with identifying and prioritizing the critical steps necessary for the sector to reach a ‘tipping point’.
Sebastian Africano leads a clean cookstove focus group in Haiti.
These outputs will form the basis of both a public ‘Clean Cookstoves Sector-wide Priorities Report’ as well as the long-term strategic plan of the Alliance.
The Alliance Working Groups include the following nine topics: Health, Climate Research, Standards and Testing, Technology and Fuels, Finance and Investment, Carbon Finance, Reaching Consumers, Humanitarian, and Monitoring and Evaluation. Each Working Group is chaired by two leaders in the cookstoves field, populated with experts from the cookstoves sector or related fields, and will be operational through mid-2011.
“These Working Groups offer an excellent opportunity for Alliance partners to help shape the future of the Alliance — and the clean cooking sector – over the life of the initiative and beyond. The groups will each identify and prioritize a suite of critical steps necessary for the sector to reach a “tipping point.” These outputs will form the basis of both a public “Clean Cookstoves Sector-wide Priorities” report, as well as the Alliance’s long-term strategic plan.”
The Fairfax Foundation and several of our board members have issued a challenge: They will match whatever gifts we receive, dollar for dollar. This is your chance to see your gift accomplish TWICE as much good in an area that is most in need of your help! Click here to donate now, and make double the impact for the communities we serve in Central America and Haiti.
Thank you again for your support and best wishes for a happy and healthy 2011!
Deputy International Director Sebastian Africano hangs out with Haitian children at an IDP camp in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Dear Friends,
Today I embark on a 6-week trip to Central America and Haiti to visit the international programs of Trees, Water & People (TWP). November 5-18, I will be in Haiti and below are a few key activities on my itinerary:
Arrive in Port-au-Prince and conduct analysis of Rocket stove distribution and monitoring of 7,000 household stoves with our partner, International Lifeline Fund (ILF).
Discuss next steps for the development of a comprehensive National Stove Strategy for institutional and household stoves in Haiti.
Visit original beneficiary families of TWP emergency relief stoves in Sineas Camp, Port-au-Prince.
Visit new beneficiary families in Corail and Isa Tabare.
Participate in United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) meeting to develop the National Improved Stove strategy in conjunction with the Haitian Government (TWP has an advisory role to the working group).
Visit beneficiaries of TWP’s stove project in the Central Plateau of Haiti, as well as reconnect with the MPP – a rural peoples movement that is very interested in promoting fuel-efficient stoves to their 61,000 members. They have an abandoned ceramics facility that could become the foundation of a new local stove factory.
Visit northern Haiti to assess the access to raw materials for stove building through ports and overland crossings from the Dominican Republic.
If you are interested in sending stoves to Haiti, click here. Our Haitian friends need our continued support during these difficult times.
Why give to this project?? It has been 10 months since the devastating 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti and hundreds of thousands of Haitians are still struggling to survive in temporary Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. Having lost everything, earthquake victims are in desperate need of basic necessities. This project will provide fuel-efficient Rocket stoves to 1,344 Haitian families in IDP camps so that women may cook their family’s food safely and boil water for drinking.
Hurry to make your donations before the matching funds are gone!!
A Haitian woman cooks on her StoveTec fuel-efficient stove in an IDP camp in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Since the end of the emergency relief phase, TWP has worked with ILF on developing a local charcoal stove design, intended for micro-entrepreneurial manufacture and dissemination during 2011. This stove, the Zanmi Pye Bwa (“Friend of the Trees”), has posted fuel-use reductions on par with many of imported stoves in Port-au-Prince, but can be produced at a lower cost with local skills and materials. Keep an eye on the ZPB project as it develops throughout 2011 and 2012!
Sustainable Development, Sustainable Livelihoods 