Fuel Efficient Stove Program
The principal source of fuel for villagers in Africa is not oil, but wood, which is used for cooking and boiling water. Unfortunately, however, in much of Africa, the use of wood as a fuel source has had a devastating effect on the environment and has created problems for human health and welfare that are in many ways more difficult and profound than those associated with the use of oil. In Darfur, for example, the dependence of the populace on wood to fill its cooking needs has contributed to the desertification of that region. Desertification has, in turn, created an intense competition for scarce resources that is an underlying cause of the present crisis.
The shortage of wood in the areas surrounding many of Darfur’s camps for displaced persons has become so severe that women have to walk more than three hours to collect it and have resorted to digging up roots out of the ground. The risk to these women of rape and other forms of assault during wood collection has been well documented. Indeed, the security issue is so severe that many women have resorted to purchasing their wood from the market, which in most cases means selling a portion of their family’s food ration and missing meals. Other hazards associated with the use of wood for cooking include:
• increased morbidity and mortality from respiratory diseases owing to the high concentration of smoke that is emitted during the cooking process;
• risk of fire outbreak in congested camp environments—a risk that typically renders thousands of displaced persons homeless and creates scores of injuries and deaths every dry season; and
• burn injuries to many small children who are prone to fall into the open fire.
Lifeline’s fuel-efficient stove program addresses each of these problems by drastically reducing the amount of wood needed for cooking by as much as seventy to eighty percent and all but eliminating associated emission of smoke. Called the “magic stove” by the recipient population, Lifeline’s stove maximizes efficiency through the use of an insulated combustion chamber built out of lightweight bricks made from a mixture of clay and other organic materials, such as rice husk or groundnut shells. Lifeline teaches women how to build and use the stoves relying on a training of trainers (“TOT”) model. The raw materials are quite literally “dirt cheap” and, since most of the labor is done by the beneficiaries themselves, the per unit cost of production generally runs under one dollar per stove.