Smokeless stoves saving lives in 1,250 households

Thank you for your support of the smokeless stoves installations in Kericho county. We're delighted to bring you a short update about how the stoves form part of the bigger picture of creating brighter, healthier futures.

Kenya has a Community Health Strategy which is a bottom up approach aimed at creating healthy communities through empowering Kenyan households to take charge of their own health.  Brighter Communities Worldwide works in partnership with local Ministry of Health to help put this in place. 

Village meetings are followed by local people forming committees to oversee the homes in their village becoming healthy homesteads.   There are many challenges to living without access to clean water, without an income, without opportunity for education but the community pull together to put healthier homes in place. These have a number of key elements which mean better health conditions for the family. These elements include – safe water supply; good sanitation; rubbish disposal; smoke free cooking environment; indoor space and ventilation; nutrition and food supply; improvement of maternal, new-born and child health and income generating activities.    Once the health of individual families improves, the community grows stronger and bigger challenges to health and income and education are tackled together as time goes on.

A smoke-free cooking environment is a key element of the healthy homestead and our smokeless stoves programme provides this by replacing open fires with a stove made with local materials and a chimney to extract the smoke. The result is a reduction in respiratory illness, reduction in deforestation as the stoves use one third of the wood used in open fires, and an increase in household income as time saved collecting wood can be given to income generating projects. Local businesses (brick makers, chimney makers) benefit from the programme and trained installers can use their skills to earn a fee for each stove they install.

The stoves are installed by Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) who train as installers as part of their overall training to be a CHV.  They learn about advocacy and how to mobilise their community, about disease prevention, data collection to help identify the health needs in their village, maternal, new-born and child health and first aid skills in a remote setting.

One such CHV is Winny Ruttoh from Tuyalei.  Winny has this to say about installing smokeless stoves in her community – “not only does the smokeless stove reduce illness, it increases peoples economic situation and conserves the environment”.

If you would like to support this project again, then Giving Tuesday on November 29th is the date to mark in your calendar.  On this day GlobalGiving is giving away $1.2million to non-profits around the world as part of their #MoveAMillion campaign.  The more donations we raise over 24 hours on Giving Tuesday the more money we earn in bonus funds from GlobalGving.

Thank you for your support of this project ensuring that communities in Kericho county have a safe, healthy means to cook for their families.  Homes without these stoves cook over open fires in a smoke filled kitchen - as case numbers of COVID-19 rise again in Kenya can you imagine how much more difficult it would be to recover in a atmosphere breathing in wood smoke?  Your support is vital and very much appreciated.  

Community members are trained as installers and so far this year they have installed 632 stoves for families in need identified by Brighter Communities Worldwide.   Once trained, installers use their skills to install stoves on request and they charge a fee which provides them wtih an income.

Rehema has been an installer for 5 yrs now She was constructing the traditional stoves when she was identified and trained by Brighter Communitise Worldwide as an installer of the smokeless stoves.  She earns a fee of 300kes for an installation and over a 6 month period she has done 60 installations.

She says the significant changes for the families are - less firewood is used compared to the open fire, no more smoke in the houses, time saved colleced wood gives more time for other activities, healthier home and promotes healthier and cleaner environment overall.

Smokeless stoves are just one element in creating a health homestead - others include access to clean water,  mosquito nets to help protect against malaria, kitchen garden to improve diet wtih variety of vitamins and minerals, dish racks for drying dishes off the ground, access to a health clinic close by, a means to earn an income, improved pit latrine (toilet) and managing waste including reusing and recycling.

Your donation is making life changing programmes possible!  Thank you for your help and please feel welcome to share this project with friends and familes and help us reach more of the most vulnerable families in need.