BY GIRMACHEW GASHAW
Hana Berisu, 30, resides in the Adami Tulu Jiddo-Kombolcha Woreda of Oromia State. Together with other women in the area, she is producing energy saving stoves. The newly innovated stoves, that she is capable of producing have now improved the lifestyle of the community in connection to food cooking culture. She recalled that the fumes and smoke that traditional stoves release have made communities’ life arduous.
Listing the multifaceted advantage of the new stove, Hana elaborated not only minimizing firewood consumption of the society, the energy saving stove created jobs for the women who previously stick with agriculture only. Accordingly, the association she belongs to is now producing the stoves and generating income out of it.
For the time being, members of the association have been saving the money earned from stove sales. So far, they produced and sold 130 stoves within four months. The unit price of the stove was 300 birr. Following the rising up of cement price, they were forced to raise the selling price to 500 birr.
By saving some money from the project, Hana and the association members, have envisaged to engage in other business that make them more beneficial. One area of business they assume to venture in may be opening hole-in-the-wall thereby distribute consumer goods to the community at large.
Indicating that she installed the stove at her home, the mother of two said all the members do the same and contribute to make the ecosystem survive.
Rebuma Borena is also a member for Kello Energy Stove Producing Association. Demonstrating how the energy saving stove is being produced, she said that the association, which has 50 members, classified women in four groups. Accordingly, a woman has a quota to produce three stoves a day.
Indicating that she is first-hand to install the energy saving stove at her home to check whether it works as it said, Rebuma understood that the stove saves time, energy as well as firewood consumption to cook food in daily basis.
“Even if we sold the stoves for the community, we did not prefer to share the income we have got from, we spend half of it for purchasing cement so as to produce additional 500 stoves which we are ordered.”
Various stakeholders are assisted the association, she said adding that Sustainable Environment Development Agency (SEDA), has been supplying various inputs such as water container, producing machines and others.
Established before a year and three months, the association eases the challenge of the society by introducing this technology. Previously Rebuma were always worried about the safety of her kids, especially when she goes out of her home, her child may face danger while she tries to cook food. These days, teenagers are able to cook their food without the assistance of elders.
Hussein Bekele is Senior Programme Officer at Sustainable Environment Development Agency (SEDA). According to him, the energy saving stove is an innovative project intended to improve the livelihood of the rural communities of the central rift valley, Ethiopia through reducing deforestation, saving money and time of the rural women.
The project targets 600 households in two Kebeles of Adami Tulu Jiddo-Kombolcha district of East Showa zone of Ethiopia. The project involves awareness raising, stove production, transportation and installation along with project management supports. “Accordingly, we raise the awareness of the community members focused on the importance of the technology in reducing environment, economic, social, health dimensions.”
Model households showed interests to adopt the technology. The beneficiaries have testified that traditional stoves have brought environment, health and economic hardships of communities.
Noting that the previous stoves requires large amount of wood which has led to deforestation and soil erosion, Hussein adding that their use also further marginalized women and girls as they must collect hard-to-find fuel wood and are subjected to the smoke and fumes caused by traditional stoves.
By producing energy saving stoves that efficiently burn wood and reduce heat wastage, the project is improving conversation capacity and women’s health. According to him, traditional stoves have 80 percent heat loss rate and needing more wood to cook food. The open design currently used also increasing fumes and causes severe respiratory issues in women and girls.
He said that the covered designed of energy stove provides a low rate of heat loss, reducing the amount of wood needed to fuel them. This lifts the burden of women and girls to collect or pay for expensive fire wood, saves time and cooks food faster. Energy saving stoves also reduce smoke and fumes in the household and protect women and girls from respiratory issues. SEDA provides families with energy saving stoves, giving them training on operation and maintenance to ensure proper and extended use.
Through the energy saving stove project, SEDA seeks to improve local conversation and take pressure of natural resources by reducing the amount of wood harvested for fuel. Women will also have increased opportunities for income generation and participating in community events as their time of collecting wood and cooking will be reduced, he added.
The Ethiopian Herald June 29/2022
