Action Guide

Why: The problem/opportunity

There are approximately 750 million open fire stoves in the world today. This form of cooking produces excessive pollution (black carbon) that significantly contributes to Global Warming. Additional adverse effects of open fire cooking include mortality (over 4 million deaths annually) and morbidity (respiratory illness, cancers, severe burns), gender (women and children) inequality, a decreased quality of life and deforestation.

What: The Solutions

Providing cleaner cooking alternatives, especially in developing countries, provides solutions to the issues described above. Solutions depend on the country, culture, economy and resources.

How: Implementation Ideas

A Rotary District Grant has allowed us to purchase 5 Sun Bucket units which will also include a battery pack for solar light generation. This is so critical in a refugee camp. We are working with SUNBUCKETS Africa, which has experience with the setup, teaching, maintenance and ongoing evaluation of this method of cooking.

Where:

At the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, the Rotary Club of London Hyde Park (Canada), in collaboration with the Rotary Club of St Thomas, (Canada) and the Eldoret – Uasin Gishu Rotary Club, (Kenya) is starting a trial with an innovative method of Solar Cooking, using a product caked SUNBUCKETS.

Costs/Budgets
The cost of a SUNBUCKET UNIT (the actual Sun Bucket, parabola, special pot, solar lighting unit) is relatively expensive. Currently, this unit costs $650 USD. The price is entirely paid by the District Grant. People in the refugee camp have very little, and very little opportunity to earn an income. We hope that the cost will decrease as production of these units increases.

Tips/Other ideas
N/A

Resources
Sun Buckets webpage