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Transforming cooking technology (Story contributed by Mehjabeen Abidi-Habib)

Transforming cooking technology: fuel-efficient stoves save health and global climate

In 1994, Mariam Bashir, daughter of a wealthy business tycoon, decided she didn’t want to work for her family business empire, the Escorts Group of Companies, rather she would work for poor communities in Punjab. Inspired by her grandmothers concern for poor communities, she established the Escorts Foundation, to improve the health, education and
income generation of villagers near an irrigated forest called Changa Manga, a protected area in Punjab.

As project staff of Escorts Foundation started field-work, they noticed that families spent inordinate hours illegally pillaging the forest for fire wood used in kitchens. Women spend hours stooped over smoky stoves, developing life-long respiratory problems and visual impairments. This smoke also generates green house gases that damage the earth’s climate.

The Escorts Foundation approached UNDP’s Global Environment Facility/Small Grants Programme for financial assistance for training women in how to use fuel –efficient cooking stoves. The original design of these stoves came from India when a female engineer noticed how inefficient the design of the century’s old traditional chulla actually was. Escorts organized groups of women in 24 villages to see the benefits of the stove. 10 ‘chulla (stove) mechanics’ who are masters of the new technology, adapt the expensive steel chimney into a cheap recycled one made from cooking-oil tin containers.

Now, out of 7,913 households, 5,476 use the new technology. Apart from relief from inhaling billowing smoke, a UNDP evaluation shows unexpected project benefits. With efficient stoves, women spend less time cooking and improve spouse relationships with quality time. Children attend school regularly, with less need to spend time away so that they can forage for fuel wood for the family hearth, and climate change experts say, that dollar for dollar, this is among the cheapest ways of saving
harmful CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.

Today, Miriam, an old woman who is a chulla mechanic in a village near Changa Manga, sqats on the earthen floor of her village home cooking on her improved stove. She says “ this lady they call ‘UNDP’ who has sent us this new stove, where does she live? I pray for her long life and bless her - please bring her here to us”.