Early Bet, Ongoing Impact

Family members of the Justa stoves original co-designer, Justa Nuñez

By Sebastian Africano, Executive Director

In the community development sector, it often takes years to know how well an idea delivers on its potential.  In 1998, Stuart Conway was on a mission to decrease firewood consumed for household cooking in Central America, to slow rates of deforestation. “Clean” cookstoves were a relatively blunt tool at the time – there were few, simple designs, minimal geographic coverage, and a nascent understanding of what made an “improved” cookstove better than tried and true traditional options.

Stuart made a bet via his new organization, Trees, Water & People (TWP), that local women, working with engineers that understood participatory design, could come up with something better than what was available.  After Hurricane Mitch in late 1998, the work began, and within the year, TWP, Aprovecho Research Center, and the community Aldea de Suyapa had debuted the Justa Stove, named after Justa Nuñez – the woman who most contributed to its design.

Twenty years later, the Justa Stove remains the flagship improved cookstove in Central America, and dozens of additional designs have sprung from its original iteration.  In March, I gave a talk on the history of the Justa Stove to 100 members of the Clean Stove Network of Latin America and the Caribbean, during their 3rd International Forum.  The positive response from organizations who had adopted the stove, others that had studied the stove, and yet others who had modified it to serve different markets, was validating, and humbling.

Presenting at the 3rd International Forum for Clean Stove Network of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Justa Stove is designed by and for the user, which is one secret to its success.  Another is that it’s built by local masons using locally manufactured materials, and generates income for anyone willing to learn how to build it.  Most importantly, it’s easy to use; it’s aesthetically familiar and cooks the food people want to cook with the same speed, firewood, and pots that cooks are used to.  The fact that it uses 50% less wood and reduces smoke exposure in the household by 80% is just icing on the cake.

Central America is in crisis.  It sorely needs employment, innovation, investment, and participatory development.  The only way we can proactively reduce migration out of Central America is to invest in building resilient economies there – especially in rural areas.  TWP can help in real and tangible ways, but given the urgency, we need to redouble our efforts, and our reach.

There is currently a push to create hundreds of jobs in the cookstove sector through in-depth training of masons in theory, design, installation, maintenance, and refurbishment of the Justa Stove.  This is a dream situation for TWP, and with your generous support, we can put Central Americans back to work making local products that improve the environment and quality of life for tens of thousands of people per year. One stove costs between $75 – $100 to install, and it costs roughly $300 to fully train, equip, and certify new builders.

With over 250,000 Justa-type stoves installed to-date, and numerous studies proving its acceptance and efficacy, it’s now more than clear that Stuart Conway’s early bet on cookstoves has borne fruit.  The opportunity to build on this success is huge, and the time is now. If you’d like to support this effort, please reach out directly to TWP, or donate using the link below.

Thank you for reading – please spread the word about TWP across your networks!

Part 2: The Road to Clean Cookstoves

by Gemara Gifford, International Director

Clean cookstoves don’t just save lives; they add healthy years to someone’s life.

In November of last year, Trees, Water & People and our Nicaraguan partners, Proleña, partnered with Aprovecho Research Center to compare the emissions from open-fire stoves to those from Proleña’s improved stoves, manufactured in Managua. The results were alarming, which is why we are raising $8,000 to provide 60 clean cookstoves to those 60 study participants still cooking over open fires.

This woman was a volunteer participant in our study. An air quality monitor hangs around her neck as she stands by her traditional open fire stove.

This study took place near Jinotega, Nicaragua with half of the families using traditional open fire stoves, and the other half using Proleña’s clean cookstoves. Each stove user volunteered to wear a small monitoring device that attaches to the shirt near the woman’s face to approximate her exposure to smoke for a 24-hour period. These monitors collect small airborne particles, referred to as PM2.5 in the air quality monitoring field, that are the most commonly measured pollutant coming from wood smoke. PM2.5 particles are widely accepted as a principle source of illnesses like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lower respiratory infections, lung cancer, and cardiovascular disease.

These are some of the filters from the particle monitors used in this study. The filters on the left are from homes with a clean cookstove. The ones on the right are from homes using traditional open fires. Photo by the Aprovecho Research Center.

The average traditional stove user in this study was consistently exposed to 245 µg/m3 of particulates, qualifying their kitchens as a “HEAVY POLLUTED” environment, according to the EPA’s Air Quality Index. In homes where an improved stove had been introduced and adopted, exposure to indoor air pollution was reduced by an average of 63%.

Averted Disability Adjusted Life Years (ADALY) is a commonly used metric for public health studies that represent the number of years of healthy life made possible by reducing exposure to particulate matter in smoke. Using the ADALY methodology, we determined that if clean cookstoves were installed in 500 homes (helping 2,500 people), we could extend life in that population by 286 years. This is why we’ve launched the “Clean Cookstoves and Healthy Families in Nicaragua” campaign because, quite frankly, cooking shouldn’t kill!

Overall, this study was an excellent reminder that clean cookstoves are indeed critical, tangible tools that can help improve a person’s quality of life measurably. It is difficult to put a price on extra years of health, but with $8,000 we’ll be able to complete funding for 60 stoves needed in Jinotega.

Help thank the women in this study who opened their kitchens to us, and who are still breathing smoke as you read this. Give Health. Give Hope. Give Today!

This woman uses her clean cookstove provided by Proleña to cook tortillas.

 

 

Part 1: The Road to Clean Cookstoves

by Valentina de Rooy

Valentina de Rooy is a Nicaraguan psychologist with experience in qualitative research about social phenomena. Her passion is working with rural communities on a diversity of issues for the community development in Nicaragua, her country of origin. Valentina became familiar with Trees, Water & People’s work through Lucas Wolf, TWP’s former International Director, whose dedication to the people and the environment inspired to engage in TWP’s mission.

I recently had the opportunity to travel with Trees, Water & People’s nonprofit partner in Nicaragua, PROLEÑA, for a clean cookstove health study. The Aprovecho Research Center and PROLEÑA joined forces to carry out a study to measure the difference in pollution from smoke emissions in households cooking with wood in traditional stoves and improved stoves around Jinotega, Nicaragua. My role was to serve as interpreter and research assistant to Sam Bentson, the lab manager for Aprovecho.

Doña María from the community of La Cal in Jinotega, who participated in this indoor air pollution study, shows us her new improved cookstove from PROLEÑA.

For a month and a half, we stayed in Jinotega, a city located in northern Nicaragua in the dry corridor of Central America. Sam, some technicians of the NGO La Cuculmeca, and I visited more than 120 homes in six rural communities in the outskirts of the city of Jinotega.  The participants in our study received us with great hospitality, stories, and gifts of crops they grew themselves. The children of the communities satiated their curiosity by following us to each of the households; some of them were even essential to the study by showing us the route to their neighbors’ homes.

Sam Bentson (Lab manager at Aprovecho Research Center) places a µPEMS inside one of the houses from La Cal community in Jinotega, Nicaragua.

We met so many amazing people during our stay. We met Don Aparicio, who has dedicated his life to the development of projects in his community of Saraguasca. While we were walking along the hill one day, Don Aparicio sang to us some verses composed by “Los Soñadores de Saraguasca,” a group of which he is a member and dedicates his songs to nature, its protection and conservation:

Let’s take care of the animals,

that enliven our environment,

like those found in the forest

over there at Agua Caliente.

For destroying our woodlands,

they had to be absent,

but if we reforest,

they will return.

In the last stage of the study, we met Doña Cata from the community of Las Lomas. Doña Cata and her husband Mario are pioneers in their community when it comes to crop diversification for their own consumption and they play a key role in hosting community meetings for the people engaged in agricultural projects.

Valentina de Rooy (research assistant of the study) explains to Doña Catalina, leader of the Las Lomas community in Jinotega, the purpose of the study and how to use the HAPEX device.

Doña Cata introduced us to Idania, a young entrepreneur who runs her own cake-making business by modifying her PROLEÑA clean cookstove with two large pots in a small oven for baking cakes. Like most beneficiaries of improved stoves, Idania enthusiastically commented on her positive experience with smoke reduction and fuel saving. Now, the stakeholders are looking forward to the results of the study, hoping to know about their health condition in order to suggest changes for the future of their communities.

An update from TWP’s International Director, Gemara Gifford:

We are pleased to announce that each participant in this study who cooks with an open-fire cookstove will be receiving a brand new clean cookstove as a reward for participating in this study. For the first time, these families will be able to breathe easier and save time and money on fuelwood. Keep an eye out for how you can sponsor a family to make this a reality! If you would like to help fund the construction of these families’ clean cookstoves, please donate today! 

Teaming up to Study Health Impacts of Clean Cookstoves in Honduras

by Bonnie Young, Ph.D., MPH
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO

Remember that parable about the boy and the starfish? It went something like this — a boy walked along the beach, picking up starfish and throwing them back into the ocean. A recent storm had passed, and the shore was covered with thousands of them. A man stopped and asked the boy what he was doing, pointing out that he couldn’t possibly help all the starfish. The boy bent down, picked up another one, threw it into the ocean, turned to the man and replied with a smile, “It made a difference to that one.”

Our research in environmental health can feel daunting. Around 2.8 billion people, almost a third of the world’s population, use solid fuel to meet their household energy needs, like cooking and heating (Bonjour et al., 2013). Using inefficient stoves to burn solid fuel — like wood, animal dung, and coal — creates toxic pollution. Imagine hovering over the thick plume of smoke from a campfire for hours a day. Now imagine doing that indoors for the majority of your life. The health impacts from breathing solid fuel smoke are many, such as lung cancer, pneumonia, poor pregnancy outcomes, and cardiovascular effects (Quansah et al., 2017). It is estimated that in 2015, 2.9 million people died prematurely due to their exposure to solid fuel smoke, mostly from cooking (Forouzanfar et al. 2016). In addition to the negative impacts on human health, these inefficient stoves create hazardous pollution for the environment and use resources, such as trees, for fuel.

Clean cookstoves, like this one, reduce deadly indoor air pollution, which accounts for an estimated 2.9 million premature deaths per year. Photo by Joanna B Pinneo

With a problem this vast, it can be hard to imagine that one project among 230 women in rural Honduras would make a difference.

The Colorado State University research team use health indicators, like lower blood pressure, to determine health impacts before and after a family receives a clean cookstove. Photo by Joanna B Pinneo

But we are making good on a promise that was made in 2014 to these women and their community leaders — to select a group of families to receive an improved Justa (pronounced ‘who-sta’) stove and visit them every six months for a few years to see how their pollution levels and health change after receiving a Justa clean cookstove. The Justa is a well-accepted, culturally appropriate stove, which was originally designed by Trees, Water & People, and is now made locally in Honduras. If you ask the women in our study, who had cooked their entire lives on traditional stoves and then received their Justa stove in 2016 or 2017, you’ll hear heartfelt stories of less smoke, less coughing, and cleaner air for the entire family.

Of course, it will be ideal at the end of the study if we see improvements in women’s health, like lower blood pressure, plus reductions in household air pollution and use of less wood-fuel.

Blood tests, like the sample being collected here, are another indicator of health before and after a clean cookstove is installed. Photo by Joanna B Pinneo

Changes like these can have larger public health impacts and potentially lead to stove interventions among entire communities. However, regardless of the bigger picture from this study, I know that the 230 houses that were involved with this intervention are now cooking on cleaner and more efficient stoves, with less smoke inhaled by the entire family, and I feel confident that we have made a difference for those “ones.”

Trees, Water & People and our partner organization,  Utz Che’, are working to build 500 clean cookstoves this year in Guatemala. If you would like to help fund a stove for a family or would like to learn more about the importance of this project, click the button below.

 

References:
Bonjour S., Adair-Rohani H., et al., 2013. Solid fuel use for household cooking: country and regional estimates for 1980-2010. Environm. Health Perspec. 121, 784-790.
Forouzanfar M., Afshin A., et al., 2016. Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990-2015: a systematic analysis for the global burden of disease study 2015. Lancet 388, 1659-1724.
Quansah R., Semple S., et al., 2017. Effectiveness of interventions to reduce household air pollution and/or improve health in homes using solid fuel in low-and-middle income countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Environment International 103, 73-90.

The Principal Investigator of this project is Maggie L. Clark, Ph.D., along with Co-Investigator Jennifer L. Peel, Ph.D., MPH. This research is funded by an NIH K99/R00 grant (PI M.Clark).

Bonnie joined the CSU Honduras cookstove team in September 2014 after finishing a 2-year epidemiology fellowship in Hawaii. She earned her Ph.D. in evolutionary anthropology and M.P.H. from the University of New Mexico. As an Anthropologist interested in global health, Bonnie has worked with urban and rural communities around the world, including Mexico, Costa Rica, Paraguay, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Her research interests span environmental health, tuberculosis, and perinatal health. Now as a Postdoc with the cookstove team, Bonnie enjoys the fieldwork in Honduras, working with community leaders, eating corn tortillas, tutoring neighbor kids in English, and doing yoga in her free time.

500 More Clean Cookstoves in Guatemala

By Sebastian Africano, Executive Director

Since 2006, Utz Che’ has been a tireless advocate for over 40 indigenous Guatemalan communities committed to protecting and sustainably managing their forest resources. Utz Che’ acts as a loudspeaker for indigenous causes and concerns, which are otherwise easily dismissed from the public discourse and policy-making dialogues.

Trees, Water & People (TWP) was introduced to Utz Che’s leadership in 2010 and has worked with them to add fuel-efficient cookstove technology to their services to reduce pressure on the local forests from which fuelwood is harvested, as well as reduce indoor air pollution. After several years of prototyping designs with Utz Che’ communities and Guatemalan manufacturers, last year we embarked on the full-scale implementation of 500 clean cookstoves manufactured by two local enterprises — ECOCOMAL and Estufa Doña Dora. The project was so successful that this year we are raising funds to install 500 more in high-need communities.

In 2016, this community in southern Guatemala received Doña Dora stoves and were all trained by Doña Dora employees on how to install, use, and maintain their new clean cookstoves.

The cookstove models selected for this project are partially pre-manufactured for consistency but are installed in a brick and mortar body constructed by trained community members. In 2016, this included 159 men and 371 women. Hands-on training in installation, use, and maintenance of the stoves increases local investment in the program through sweat equity and allows community members to become more intimate with the technology. Community engagement improves the local support network around the cookstoves.

This woman in southern Guatemala uses her clean cookstove that was built last year to make tortillas for her family.

Cooking is a very personal tradition in Central America, so new technologies must be able to cook the same foods, with the same fuels, in the same amount of time as the traditional designs if they are to be accepted by all members of society. Trees, Water & People’s years of expertise, coupled with a locally fine-tuned design, and the trust and rapport that Utz Che’ has with its member communities make for an extraordinarily effective, participatory, and meaningful partnership.

If you would like to help us build clean cookstoves in Guatemala, or would like to learn more about the importance of this project, click the button below.

Guest Blog: 500 Clean Cookstoves Installed in Guatemala

By Jeff Abbott, Independent Journalist

Jeff Abbott is an independent journalist based in Guatemala. He covers human rights, social movements, and natural resource rights in Central America and Mexico. Recently Jeff visited some of TWP’s projects in Guatemala and spoke with recipients of our clean cookstoves while photographing the delivery and installation process.

During my visit to the communities of Jocote, Jicar, and Barrio Belice, in the municipality of Quesada, Guatemala, I was able to speak to several community leaders, who shared that the origins of Utz Che’ and Trees, Water & People’s clean cookstove project came after seeing similar programs in other places. At its core, the drive for the endeavor comes from a place of deep concern over the deforestation in the mountains above their community.

Besides the health benefits of these stoves, which channel smoke out of the kitchen via a chimney, they also require far less firewood than the traditional open fire. As many beneficiaries of this project live in the peri-urban outskirts of Quesada, where fuel is purchased more than collected, this translates to a considerable reduction in household fuel expenditures.

Vera Alica’s new clean cookstove will use up to 70% less fuel than the open fire she was using to cook before her stove was installed.

Vera Alicia (pictured above) is one of the recipients of the stove in the Aldea of Jicar. The 47-year-old mother of nine stated that the stove has allowed her to save substantial money on firewood. Another beneficiary, Marina Germeño (pictured below), reported that she was saving $3.33 per week – a significant sum over the life of the stove. Vera Alicia also explained that it has not changed her cooking habits, but that she has seen a dramatic reduction in the amount of smoke in her kitchen.

This clean cookstove project in the communities of Quesada and two other departments in Guatemala’s arid corridor, provide an important opportunity for the residents who have benefitted. Short-term, tangible benefits of the project are the immediate economic savings that families experience via the significant reduction in firewood used for cooking. Most residents quickly acknowledged this benefit, expressing the savings they had noticed.

Marina Germeño reported that she was saving $3.33 per week – a significant sum over the life of the stove.

Furthermore, residents are conscious of the environmental benefit that the decreased reliance on firewood brings to their communal lands, which TWP has helped to reforest in years past. Apart from protecting local forests, another beneficiary, Marthy Corina Soto, also expressed that a major benefit that she has noticed since receiving the stove is the fact that she does not burn herself as easily, as there is no open flame. “Everything has been magnificent,” echoes her husband, Angel.

Trees, Water & People is happy to report that, with our partner Utz Che’, we were able to build and install all 500 cookstoves in three departments of Guatemala. We truly have the best supporters in the world and are humbled by your contributions!

We are still working to raise funds for this program to follow up with each family to ensure that they have transitioned completely to their new stove and to assess any barriers to full adoption.  We have found that following up with families shortly after their new stoves have been installed is critical to the family using their clean cookstoves consistently and correctly. Monitoring after the installation is an important part of our work and it is only possible with your support! 

Guest Blog: Estufa Doña Dora Teams up with Trees, Water & People

by David Evitt, co-founder and CEO of Estufa Doña Dora 

A staggering 57% of Guatemalan energy use comes from firewood. That single statistic puts the challenge of clean cooking in context. In rural areas, there is near total dependence on biomass energy. For those families, wood for cooking is their only significant use of energy.

70% of Guatemalan families cook with wood, mostly on improvised open fire stoves that leave the kitchen filled with smoke, leading to disastrous health outcomes. Household air pollution globally causes more deaths than HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. The country-level outcomes for Guatemala are similar, with 5,000 deaths a year caused by indoor air pollution, and acute respiratory infections aggravated by kitchen smoke being the leading killer of children under five.

Yes, the challenge of clean cooking in Guatemala is monumental. However, we see this as an opportunity. Estufa Doña Dora is a Guatemalan social enterprise founded on the idea that a clean cookstove should have more in common with consumer durables, like blenders and TV’s, even when used for humanitarian interventions. We recognize that a cookstove is mission-critical professional equipment for Guatemalan cooks.

A woman in southern Guatemala tests our her brand new Doña Dora stove.

The most important criteria for a Guatemalan cookstove are that 1) it has the necessary capacity for the family’s cooking needs, 2) it cooks quickly and well, 3) it’s affordable, 4) it gets the smoke out of the house, and 5) it saves wood. Estufa Doña Dora has been working since 2011 to deliver products that meet all those criteria. We are the only company in Guatemala that sells a majority of efficient cookstoves directly to individual families.

We divide families into two broad groups: wood buyers and wood collectors. The wood buyers are able to pay for a cookstove over time by getting a loan through our microfinance partners, and redirecting their savings on firewood to pay for the stove. Wood collectors do not have a ready income stream to invest in a stove. That is where international development organizations like Trees, Water & People (TWP) can focus their efforts for maximum impact.

This community in southern Guatemala is learning about their new Doña Dora stoves.

We are proud to partner with TWP and Utz Ché to bring Doña Dora cookstoves to 414 families gathering wood in the Camotán, Chiquimula and Quesada, Jutiapa areas of southern Guatemala. These types of partnerships are critical to bringing the capacity, function, and ease-of-use of the Doña Dora in a way that meets the needs of the project and families. To lower costs and involve the family, Utz Ché has been delivering the pre-built, internal components of the stove and they have then been training the families on how to build the supporting structure from concrete cinderblock or Adobe, according to their preference and budget.

In following up with the first community to receive the stoves, 98% of families reported loving the stove, having no problems, and saving 50% on firewood. We were able to give extra attention to the families that needed additional support adapting to the technology, and are confident that they will adapt quickly.

Please support TWP and Utz Ché in helping eliminate household air pollution and reduce firewood consumption in 500 Guatemalan homes. Your support will help change the way these families cook their food for generations to come.

Guest Blog: StoveTeam International and Trees, Water & People Team Up!

Introduction by Sebastian Africano, International Director

At Trees, Water & People (TWP), we’re one organization in a global movement to improve living conditions for some of the world’s poorest families. Working together with other groups expands our reach and our impact, which is why we are thrilled to collaborate with our colleagues at StoveTeam International to improve cooking conditions for rural Guatemalan families. Please enjoy our guest blog post by Katie Laughlin of StoveTeam International, and support TWP’s goal of funding 500 stoves for Guatemala in June 2016!

by Katie Laughlin, Program Director at StoveTeam International

In Guatemala, 2.4 million families cook over traditional open fires. Without action, that number will likely increase to 2.8 million by 2030. That’s a scary vision for the future of Guatemala, a nation whose iconic landscapes of virgin lowland jungles and highland cloud forests are already disappearing alarmingly fast due to escalating rates of deforestation; and where burns and respiratory infections caused by harmful smoke are responsible for more than 5,000 deaths a year.

Natividad and her family are the third beneficiaries of a clean cookstove in the community of El Tarral in southern Guatemala.

StoveTeam International is motivated to change this grim prognosis by supporting efforts, large and small, to provide communities access to efficient and safe cooking alternatives. That’s why we are excited to support Trees Water & People’s effort to provide hundreds of clean cookstoves to families in Guatemala!

This summer, TWP and its partner, Utz Ché, will provide 500 stoves to three critically poor communities in Chiquimula, Jutiapa, and Escuintla. A StoveTeam International-sponsored cookstove factory, EcoComal, will provide many of these stoves. In StoveTeam’s experience, three elements are vital to success when working with local entrepreneurs to create independently owned and operated cookstove businesses – trust, local knowledge, and a passion for making a difference. TWP, Utz Ché, and EcoComal bring all three to their work with communities to create a culture of clean, smoke-free cooking that can be passed on to the next generation.

The community of El Tarral receiving clean cookstoves last month in southern Guatemala.

You too can be a part of the solution by donating a stove today. Together, we can impact Guatemala’s future and change the lives of families cooking over smoky and dangerous open fires. Make a tax-deductible donation to this project today.

 

Guest Blog: Investigating the Health Impacts of Cookstove Pollution in Honduras

Women emerge from the mist carrying bags of potatoes in Zacate Blanco.

by Bonnie Young, Colorado State University

When you think of torrential downpours, mud-slick roads, and backcountry hiking, you might imagine an exciting episode of “The Amazing Race.” Our fieldwork in rural western Honduras was similar, although we lacked a camera crew and the promise of a grand prize.

As a postdoctoral researcher with Colorado State University (CSU), I worked side-by-side for two months with Sarah Rajkumar, another CSU postdoc, Jon Stack, a CSU volunteer, and Gloribel Bautista, a local coordinator. Our goal was to work with communities to enroll 500 women in villages in Yamaranguila and Intibucá. This was our first step in a three-year project to investigate the health impacts of cookstove-based pollution, and to learn about women’s perceptions and behaviors with different stove types.

Beautiful views in this agricultural region in western Honduras, which boasts the highest elevation in the country of over 6,000 feet.

Most people in this agricultural region use wood-burning stoves to cook, heat their home, dry clothes, and generate light. Poor-functioning and inefficient stoves create household air pollution and demand excessive amounts of wood, meaning harmful effects on people’s health and the environment. Women and children often have greater exposure to indoor smoke since they tend to spend more time in the kitchen.

Knowing the importance of this research and its potential impacts fueled our daily slogs from house-to-house during the rainy season, where every hot cup of coffee and fresh corn tortilla felt like a grand prize.

From left to right: CSU field team researchers, Jon Stack, Bonnie Young, Sarah Rajkumar, and Principal Investigator, Maggie Clark.

Note: The principal investigators of this study are Jennifer Peel, Ph.D., and Maggie Clark, Ph.D. Our work is in collaboration with Trees, Water & People, and a local Honduran development organization, AHDESA. Stay tuned for updates on this project during our next field session, February – May, 2015.

Community meeting in Zacate Blanco to introduce ourselves and explain the project.

Speaking on the local radio show with Don Jose “Chepe” in Yamaranguila to broadcast our research in the region.

From left to right: Local coordinator, Gloribel Bautista, and CSU postdoctoral researchers, Bonnie Young and Sarah Rajkumar.

The muddy road prevails over the 4-wheel drive truck.

Infographic: Clean Cookstoves Save Lives!

Around the world, billions of people are still dependent on wood and other forms of biomass to cook every meal. Cooking with wood over an open fire causes a variety of environmental, economic, and human health problems.

Since 1998, we have been working with our partners and local community members to design clean cookstoves that greatly reduce deadly indoor air pollution, deforestation, and high fuel costs. These cookstoves are designed according to specific cooking needs and cultural context, which is why they can look very different from country to country. However, all of these stoves have one important thing in common: they make cooking much safer for women and their families.

To learn more and to support TWP’s Clean Cookstove Program  please visit our website!