Safe, Energy Efficient Cookstoves in Guatemala

As HRI's work to bring cleaner, safer and practical cooking solutions to rural, impoverished families in Guatemala enters a 5th year, we are looking forward to advancing our stove project in the smartest ways possible.

As a part of this, we are working on ways that we can help families learn to repair and clean parts of their stoves that are showing signs of age after several years of heavy use. This is normal given that most families have their stoves going almost all day, everyday! However, this is a very important measure that we are taking to ensure the continued positive health and safety impacts for children and to promote sustainability. 

Dangerous indoor air pollution due to open fire cookstoves is a widespread problem effecting thousands of families in Guatemala. As such, over the past few years more stoves have been manufactured and designed in Guatemala to combat the same health, safety and environmental issues we are working to prevent with our stoves. So we think it is a really good idea to conduct market research to see if our design is still the best solution where we work or if there is another advancement that is worth piloting. Our goal is always to balance the cultural and practical needs of families with stove health and safety functionality, durability and affordability. We will be talking to manufacturers as well as with families using different types of stoves as a part of our assessment to decide our next steps. The important thing is that we are open to change and/or modification in design if a better option exists. We will keep you posted on how this unfolds.

As always, we are also working to expand the project and reach more families who are suffering from the effects of indoor air pollution. We can change this dangerous reality! Please spread the word about our efforts and help us to reach more children and their families in 2017.

Links:

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