Back in November we launched a Crowdfunder campaign to end indoor air pollution for 131 families in Sankhuwashabha. We were blown away by how many people got involved in pledging support, spreading the word and offering help. 107 people donated a combined total of £10,949 in just 28 days! Many people donated a full £207 to fund an entire stove.
We smashed our original target and got pretty close to our ‘stretch’ target, which meant we were able to fund 42 smoke free cooking stoves to match the 89 already funded by IFAD (The International Fund for Agricultural Development).
This is the first of a series of updates on how the project is now progressing.
Our partner NGO EcoHimal Nepal paid a visit to a factory in Kathmandu in January to take a look at how the stoves are being fabricated. The photo’s below tell their own story, but first up, here is one of the images we used as part of the Crowdfunder - this is Mrs Sujani Gurung, one of the 30 people who took on a stove as part of our pilot project in 2018:
131 of these excellent, tailor made stoves are now very nearly ready to be loaded onto trucks and driven up to the wilds of Sankhuwashabha.
So, as Greg Wallace would say, let’s go inside the factory!
Metal rings that enclose the hot plates for the three hobs
A pyramid of chimney’s - the most important feature of the stove; smoke filled kitchens will soon be a thing of the past in Chepuwa and Rukuma villages, Sankhuwashabha
Conical chimney hoods that keep the rain out of the chimney; not to mention the many curious animals that live in Nepal’s mountains.
A look inside the stove before the hot plate and chimney are attached; you can see the roof of the oven chamber.
In the red coat is Narayan Dhakhal from EcoHimal, he’s checking the door to the oven opens and closes smoothly.
The stoves are designed to be robust, but also manoeuvrable, whilst trucks and tractor trailers carry the load for most of the journey from Kathmandu to Sankhuwashabha, the last few miles up to the villages can only be reached by foot, so the stoves need to be light enough to be carried.
Here are some almost complete stoves. In this photo, you can see the door to the furnace section; users need to keep this door shut to maximise wood burning efficiency. You can also see the three hobs and the base of the chimney.
Stacked and ready to be loaded onto to lorries for transportation to the mountains of eastern Nepal.