International Lifeline Fund Wins Partnership for Clean Indoor Air (PCIA) Global Leadership Award
From the outset, the goal of the International Lifeline Fund (ILF), a U.S.-based nonprofit organization, was to promote self-sustaining interventions that would significantly relieve suffering in the poorest regions of the world. In an effort to address both the environmental and humanitarian problems associated with open fire cooking, ILF began promoting the use of an insulated clay stove in 2006. At a cost of as little as $1 to $6 USD each, ILF utilizes a variety of stove technologies in order to provide a compatible stove-type to each beneficiary community, such as rocket stoves, briquette stoves and charcoal or wood saving stoves. The average efficiency rating is 30-35 percent and household surveys consistently indicate fuel savings of nearly 50 percent.
Clean Water for Over 5,000
Last November Invisible Children asked Lifeline to drill 20 boreholes, deep water wells, in communities in northern Uganda, surrounding Invisible Children’s 20 original Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) groups. As of May 2011, 20 boreholes have been drilled and over 5,000 community members are reaping the benefits of having accessible, clean water.
Breaking Through Cultural Differences to Advance Change
A Washington, DC-based NGO and progressive implementer in the fuel-efficient stove sector, International Lifeline Fund (ILF), knows that more than any other factor, the success of a program depends on the community’s willingness to embrace the project. With this in mind, ILF designs a new stove for every community that it works with. ILF does this in order to ensure that each stove that is distributed or sold is culturally appropriate and accepted.
Cooking Out Of Africa — Non-Profit Stove Campaign Fights African Deforestation
There’s a climate war happening in Africa. It’s not an ethnic war between Arabs and Africans. It’s not a religious war between Christians and Muslims. It’s a climate war for resources quickly evaporating into thin air. It’s happening in part because of deforestation and population growth across the continent. And Dan Wolf has a solution.
Haiti’s Dirty Habit: Can Smarter Stoves Heal Haiti?
The green Land Cruiser careens through side streets piled high with rubble, past garbage heaps and tarp cities stitched into the nooks and crannies of Port-au-Prince. Elizabeth Sipple points the driver down a dusty road to what looks like the middle of nowhere, then eases into her seat in the back and, as the urban anarchy recedes behind her, nods out the window. “There’s a big drug dealer who lived in this area,” she says. “This all used to be his land.” Now it’s a field filled with white tents—a relocation camp for thousands of the 1.3 million Haitians still homeless nearly a year after 2010’s January 12 earthquake. Green, mostly treeless hills rise into the distance.
Cleaner Cookstoves For Christmas
Every day, 3 billion people in developing countries are exposed to toxic smoke when preparing meals. Cooking on traditional biomass stoves and open fires causes 1.9 million premature deaths annually, especially in children, and is a major cause of deforestation. In Haiti, for example, 95% of the population relies on wood and/or charcoal for cooking, despite the fact that Haiti has lost 98% of its forest cover. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the typical Haitian family living in Port au Prince spends 40% of its income on cooking charcoal.
A Night of Hope for Haiti’s Future
International Lifeline Founder Dan Wolf spoke on the importance of Haitians seeking independence at Longview Gallery on Tuesday evening. Philanthropists and supporters came out for an evening of art, food, drink, and entertainment while raising funds for Lifeline’s newest initiative: fuel-efficient stoves in Haiti.