 Project Benefits:
The Upside of Positive Change
- Fewer hours spent acquiring wood – by cutting wood collection requirements in half, women have more time available for child care or other family-oriented activities
- Less money spent on fuel wood means more is available for the necessities of the household
- More available productive time - for gardening, livestock and/or in gainful employment activities
- Significantly reduced risk of respiratory disease for them and their children. Efficient stoves burn wood more effectively. They burn hotter and combust fuel more efficiently while producing less toxic smoke.
Change a Life
Change a life, a family, a community, one stove at a time - In order to change the customs in Kenya, we must empower women with both the means to address their immediate needs and to build long-term solutions for the future.
- The KDA/ BioEarth Clean Cook Stoves Project is designed to do just that. It addresses short-term needs while creating a revenue stream, which continues to fund the project on an ongoing basis. Donors and other funders get the ball rolling, but the people involved in the project to keep the ball rollong, and in the process become more self-sufficient each day.
- Change requires two components that this project delivers: Technology and Education. Fuel efficient stoves provide technology to reduce fuel wood (tree) consumption by half and in doing so, provide immediate life-improving benefits to women and their families. Education is the second vital aspect of change, as it conveys the importance of natural resource management through understanding that if people continue to consume trees at rates faster than can be replenished, soon there will be no more trees, fuel wood, and timber. With that loss, no more of the many vital contributions trees provide to subsistence farmers.
- The solution for Kenyan women is not simply financial aid, but opportunity to make a better tomorrow for their families. By understanding, natural resources are tangible assets and by using technology that can preserve those assets, women have a unique opportunity to better manage those assets in their community in several advantageous ways. In so doing, they and their families can flourish.
Average Impact of a Single Stove Over Its Life  - 877 fewer hours spent collecting fuel wood
 - Up to $191 saved in fuel wood expenditure
- 22 trees saved from being felled for use as fuel wood
- About 5.7 metric tons of CO2e prevented from entering the
atmosphere [Per Stove]
The Current Problem:n Ken
ya - Part I
 In rural Kenya, women typically cook every meal over an open fire. This is difficult work that requires hours of collecting wood, subjects them and their children to severe health risks and can drain a family economically and a community environmentally. It’s a traditional custom that needs to change.
Every day over 2500 Women in poor rural communities around the world die from respiratory causes related to indoor Air Pollution [IAP] caused by smoke from daily cooking.
Since mothers typically have their babies and children with them while cooking, they are equally affected – with almost 800,000 children under 5 dying annually from daily exposure to cooking smoke. Cooking over an open fire is equivalent to smoking 40 cigarettes a day for anyone standing in the hut!
In some regions of Kenya, women are subject to attacks ranging from theft and beatings to rape and death. To be a woman, alone in the woods is to be vulnerable. Often, girls are required to begin helping their mothers gather wood and cook at a very early age. And sometimes this can deprive them of schooling and/or adequate study time. While their brothers study, they are out with their mothers working to prepare the meal.
Because of the time required for the collecting wood and preparing meals, women are often denied the opportunity to participate in more nurturing activities with the family or in gainful employment. To a large extent, "stoves" in Kenya are really just an open fire with 3 large stones spaced to accommodate a large pot on top of them. This uncontained fire wastes most of the energy it produces and represents a potential hazard for hut fires and severe burns. On average, throughout the day, the air quality in a Kenyan hut is more than ten times worse than the EPA recommended levels for American households.
Many rural Kenyan women walk 5 to 6 km to get to an adequate source of fuel wood and then carry a bundle of wood weighing 40+ pounds back to their village using rope as a sling. If you can imagine, that is like walking a 10K with your 6 year old child on your back for the second half of it. ================================================================== Doing the Math: The numbers showing the effects of fuel-efficient stoves we use are simply to provide an “order of magnitude” representation of what is taking place in developing countries around the world.
There are typically several studies showing different values for these figures. In addition, we have done some of our own research, which confirms our numbers as well. We sometimes use weighted averages but always cite figures that we believe are on the low or conservative side.
We have provided some of the sources we used as a starting point for those who want to dig deeper into the various studies we drew upon for our presentation of data.
All totals for the Kenya Project are estimates based on a combination of wood and charcoal burning fuel efficient stoves being distributed to 400,000 households incrementally over a 10 year period Conclusion: One Stove = 22 trees saved from deforestation | 1.2 | | Average Kg/person/day of fuel wood consumed in rural Kenya† | x | 6 | | Average rural household size in Kenya† | | 7 | | Daily Kg of fuel wood per household | x | 365 | | Days in a year | | 2555 | | Annual Kg of fuel wood per household | x | 37.5% | | Average fuel savings of fuel efficient stove† | | 894 | | Kg of fuel wood saved | ÷ | 195 kg | | Weight of average tree | | 4.9 | | Avg. trees saved annually | x | 4.5 | | Years avg life expectancy of stove† | | 22 | | Avg. trees saved per stove over its lifespan | | 11.0 million | | Trees saved over life of The
Project |
 Conclusion: One stove = 877 hours of collecting fuel wood saved | 10 to 12 | | Average round trip distance for wood collecting trip† | ÷ | 5 to 6 | | Kph Typical walking speed | | 2 | | Hours spent walking | + | 1 | | Hours gathering wood | | 3 | | Total hours on typical wood gathering trip† | x | 3 to 4 | | Typical number of weekly wood gathering trips† | | 10 | | Hours spent weekly on wood gathering | x | 52 | | Weeks per year | | 520 | | Hours spent annually collecting wood | x | 37.5% | | Average fuel savings of fuel efficient stove† | | 195 | | Avg. annual time savings | x | 4.5 | | Years avg. life expectancy of stove† | | 877 | | Avg. total time savings per stove over its lifespan | | 214 million | | Hours saved over life of The
Project |
Conclusion: One stove = $191 fuel wood cost savings | $0.31 | | Typical amount spent on fuel wood for those who purchase it† | x | 365 | | 365 Days in a year | | $113.15 | | Annual fuel costs | x | 37.5% | | Average fuel savings of fuel efficient stove† | | $42.43 | | Annual fuel cost savings | x | 4.5 | | Years avg. life expectancy of stove† | | $191 | | Avg. total fuel cost savings per stove for those who purchase over its lifespan | | $7.8 million | | Total fuel cost savings if all in project purchased | |
Conclusion: $35 million additional income over life of The Project | 214 million | | Hours of fuel wood collecting labor saved over life of The Project (ref above calculation) | x | $0.17 | | Average hourly earnings of extreme poor | | $37.5 million | | Income earned over life of The Project from hours not spent collecting fuel wood | + | 7.8 million | | Total fuel cost savings over life of The Project (ref above calculation) | | $43.5 million | | Total positive effect on income over life of The Project | |
Conclusion: 2,163 lives saved by The BioEarth ‘Clean Cooking Project’ | 3 million | | Lives impacted by One stove The Project (500,000 stoves X household of 6 people) | x | .103% | | People that die in Kenya annually from respiratory disease caused by indoor cooking smoke† | | 3,090 | | Projected deaths due to indoor smoke/pollution from cooking | x | 70% | | % of toxic fumes eliminated by efficient stove† | | 2,163 | | Lives saved due to reduced indoor smoke/ pollution over life of The Project | |
Conclusion: One stove = 5.7 tons of CO2e not emitted; Per Stove | 1.43 | | Avg tons of CO2e reduced annually by efficient stove use† | x | 4.5 | | Years avg. life expectancy of stove† | | 6.43 | | Total tons of CO2e reduced per stove | | 3.4 | | 500,000 Stoves Million Tons of CO2e reduced over life of The Project |
We Believe providing developing world communities with the means and opportunity to change their
traditional ways is the only viable long-term solution to reverse the destructive cycle of human,
financial and environmental degradation that ultimately affects us all. We Believe that donors. Grant-makers, lenders and investors can come together to fund projects that create
long-term value that far exceeds the cost of achieving it. We Believe that together we can bring an end to poverty in the developing world one community at a time.
Conclusion: Investing $40.00 will change the World; One Stove at a Time. |
