|
10 April 2010
The World Health Organisation has stated that children exposed to the open fires used for cooking in Guatemala will develop permanent lung damage by the age of five.
We felt we could not stand by and watch this inevitability so in 2007 we started an initiative to install a safer alternative into our families' homes.
The majority of our families do cook with open wood fires and have no way of properly venting the thick black smoke from their homes. As you can imagine there are deadly and debilitating results from constant exposure to this toxic smoke. The stoves we are currently installing reduce the smoke emissions from within the houses by 99% as well as providing a much safer alternative to an open fire.
We started by installing two different models of stove so that we could evaluate the efficiency, and more importantly in such an underdeveloped country, their ease of use. Our progress in installing the stoves has been slower than first anticipated, this is due to the preferences and differing cooking methods of our families. Originally we believed that the ONIL stove (www.onilstove.com) would be perfect for every family, but our experience showed that it was too small for some of our bigger families. A suitable alternative was found but unfortunately delayed some of the installations.
Thanks to a big donation from 'The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation' we completed our stove initiative for 2008. A huge thank you to them and everyone else who has kindly donated a stove.
We will be continuing to raise money for stoves as we encounter new families who are living in the dangerous atmosphere of toxic smoke. To donate a stove please get in touch with us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call us on +44 115 958 48 76.