Solar Cooking
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News and Recent Developments

  • December 2012: Jewish World Watch, originator of the Solar Cooker Project for Sudanese refugees, reviews their current programs at several of the refugee camps in Chad – As a result of a joint security force between Chad and Sudan, violence against women has declined some since the project began seven years ago. Cord, their partner at the Farchana refugee camp, sees solar cooking as a way to keep girls in school, and not spending hours finding fuelwood for cooking. For others, the project has meant help for the environment and the air quality conditions for women previously using open fires. When the Jewish World Watch contingent first visited the camps many years ago, the refugees had just arrived and the encampment was meant to be temporary. The hope and expectation was that within a few months or a couple of years at most; they would return to their homes. But now, seven years later, it is clear that returning to Darfur is not a reality and the camps are turning into permanent settlements. As a result, the programs for the refugees must begin to move away from survival resources and begin to address ways of achieving self-sufficiency and permanence. In other words, helping to create a life, not an existence. Future larger scale solutions will be needed to address and benefit the surrounding communities, as well as the refugee camps, to help with the integration of the Sudanese residents. Read more...
SHE HotPot in Gaga camp

One of the fifty women who received SHE training with a HotPot cooker in Chad.

IMG 0089

Community leaders receive solar box cookers from PROMOSOL midway through their training.

  • January 2011: Ten solar box cookers have recently been completed, and been placed in the hands of ten community leaders, who have just finished half of their training provided by PROMOSOL located in N'Djaména. Currently, there is a waiting list backlog of about sixty orders for cookers, as they try to keep pace with the enthusiastic response from the community. Once this current group is trained, they will begin in February to train others in the manufacture of the box cookers.
Offsets for Darfur

Offsets for Darfur

  • December 2010: Offsets for Darfur: is an initiative designed by SENSE Foundation to target both environmental issues and support the Solar Cooker Project - an ingenious solar delivery and training program for Sudanese refugees in Chad based camps delivered and facilitated by Solar Cooker International, Kozon and Jewish World Watch. The benefits of "Offsets for Darfur" are twofold with both environmental and humanitarian aid aspects including the mitigation of: • carbon output in Chad refugee camps, • health issues related to firewood cooking. • women's safety issues related to sourcing firewood outside of camp boundaries • and unemployment in refugee camps - the project offers training and employment opportunities within the camps.
  • December 2010: Solar power helps tackle deforestation. According to Climate Action Network (CAN), a worldwide network of roughly 500 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) working to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change, the Chad government’s decision last year to ban the use of firewood for cooking was a brave attempt to reduce deforestation, but it has caused significant hardship among those who depended wood for cooking. It has been strictly enforced, and families have been forced to burn everything from furniture to plant roots to cook. The KoZon Foundation, the Chad Ministry of Women Affairs and other groups have distributed more than 2,000 solar stoves to women in areas of greatest need, primarily rural. As usual, effective training and follow-up have been important in introducing the solar cookers. More Information...
  • January 2010: Photos and discussion of evaluation visit to the Iridimi Refugee Camp - Karyn Ellis
  • September 2009: The Edmond Burke High School has raised $3000 in  bake sales for the Jewish World Watch project in the Darfur refugee camps.
  • January 2009: Chad Government's ban on charcoal and fresh cut fire wood in N'djamena creates 'explosive' fuel shortage crisis in city: Here's what's happening in N'djamena this week after the charcoal ban went into effect: "'As we speak women and children are on the outskirts of N'djamena scavenging for dead branches, cow dung or theoccasional scrap of charcoal,' Merlin Totinon Ngutan, head of the UN Human Settlements Programme (HABITAT) in Chad, told IRIN from the capital. 'People cannot cook. Women giving birth cannot even find a bit of charcoal to heat water for washing,' Mrs. Narmadji, with the Association of Women for Development in Chad, told IRIN." (Source: Banging pots and pans to end charcoal ban - allAfrica.com)
  • November 2007: Cooking in Darfur: Solar stoves cleaner, safer for refugees - Monterey Herald
  • March 2007: Darfur refugees keep on cookin' - Solar Cooker Review
  • February 2007: Jewish World Watch is now coordinating donations for people wishing to donate to provide solar cookers to the Darfur refugees in Chad.
  • February 2007: Darfur heroes honored - The Long Beach Press Telegram
  • January 2007: $8 stove life-saving gift to Darfur women
Iridimi Refugee Camp CooKits1 2006
  • August 2006: Solar Cookers International (SCI) is partnering with The KoZon Foundation, a Dutch charitable group, to assist Darfur refugees living in Chad. In 2004, KoZon volunteer Derk Rijks trained fifteen women in the capital, N'Djamena. He returned in early 2005, after getting approval from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to start a solar cooker demonstration project at Iridimi refugee camp, one of the camps hosting Darfur refugees. Marie-Rose Néloum, one of the previously trained women, took the plight of the refugees to heart and joined Rijks to train refugee women to use solar CooKits and teach others, starting in early 2005. Women responded very enthusiastically and those who learned to solar cook fulfilled their promise to teach others. CooKits were soon assembled on-site by refugee women, who earn an income through this activity. A production workshop was completed in early 2006. The workshop is located in a neutral zone of the camp, close to the offices of the camp administrator, CARE. Refugee women from each of the camp's ten zones take turns training new groups of five to six people. The refugee women at Iridimi camp, as well as head trainer Néloum and two other staff, have persevered in promoting solar cooking even as the security situation has grown increasingly unstable since April 2006. As of July 2006 Iridimi camp had 32 certified solar cooking trainers, 21 CooKit assemblers, 566 trained families, and 1200 CooKits distributed, two to four per tent. Fifty-four women were interviewed in July 2006. Thirty-nine of them solar cook every day; twelve solar cook five to six days a week; and three solar cook two to four days a week. To minimize their reliance on firewood, many families would like to maximize use of all their CooKits. However, about a quarter of the families have sold one or more of their cooking pots in exchange for precious food. SCI and The KoZon Foundation are working together to provide supplies to make CooKits, training, monitoring and accountability to brighten the lives of Darfur refugees at Iridimi camp in Chad. Groups and organizations such as the Darfur Assistance Project and Jewish World Watch, both based in southern California (USA), and many individuals have donated to SCI in support of this project. Additional logistical and communications support from UNHCR and CARE International is invaluable in continuing project operations. Barring significant disruptions, each Iridimi camp household will have two or more CooKits by early 2007.

Climate, Culture, and Special Considerations

  • Chad is generally sunny. Local sources of firewood are depleted. It is a good region for solar cooking. (Source: Juan Urrutia Sanz, 2010-Feb-15)

See also

Resources

Map showing location of refugee camps

ChadMap2009

Reports

Articles in the media

Audio and video

September 2007: Solar ovens for Chad
July 2007: This is a solar cooker workshop in Nyala, Darfur. As the women look for firewood around the displacement camps they face the danger of rape and abduction. Solar cooking offers an alternative to using firewood for cooking.


Blogs

Web pages

Contacts

The entities listed below are either based in Chad, or have established solar cooking projects there:

SCI Associates

NGOs

Manufacturers and vendors

Individuals

Government agencies

Educational institutions

See also

References