Iridimi Refugee Camp

From Solar Cooking

NEW: October 2007 evaluation report on the Iridimi Refugee Camp project shows that trips outside the camp to gather firewood were reduced by 86%.

Contents 1 Background 2 Information on foods cooked 3 Audio and video 4 See also 5 External links

[edit] Background

Since early 2005, Solar Cookers International (SCI) has partnered with the KoZon Foundation and Jewish World Watch to provide solar cookers and related training to Darfur refugees living in the Iridimi Refugee Camp. Located in Chad, the camp houses 17,000 refugees that fled the Darfur region of Sudan. Gender-based violence during firewood collection was one factor leading to the displacement of Darfur’s population.

Iridimi camp administrators have distributed improved wood stoves and kerosene cookers to the refugees, but these devices still rely on scarce or expensive energy sources. Solar cookers not only reduce dependence on these fuels by about one-third, but also decrease health risks associated with smoky cooking fires and lessen the risk of physical violence that women and children face while venturing outside the camp to gather firewood. Equally important is the capability of solar cookers to pasteurize drinking water, reducing incidence of water-borne diseases, especially in children.

Groups of five or six people learn to solar cook by attending five-day instructional workshops, led by one of 32 certified trainers. Once trained, the new solar cooks receive two CooKits — enough to cook grains and sauce at the same time. A CooKit production workshop was completed in early 2006, and since then women have earned income assembling CooKits and conducting trainings. As of June 2007, all of the 4669 families in the Iridimi camp are successfully using solar cookers (ca. 17,000 individuals). Now replacement cookers will be provided for the families every six months. Families are made up of 5-7 people per tent, often one woman, head of household, with up to three of her own children and three orphans. The refugee women in Iridimi camp have persevered in pushing forward this solar cooking project even as the security situation has grown increasingly unstable.

Organizations providing financial support for this project have included: Netherlands Refugee Foundation, Jewish World Watch, the Darfur Assistance Project, the Dora Levit Family Fund, and the Hesed Fund. Logistical and communications support from UNHCR and CARE is invaluable in continuing project operations.

[edit] Information on foods cooked

The main staple food distributed in Iridima and Touloum at the moment is maize meal. It is sometimes accompanied by a maize-soya-meal mixture, if available. Maize meal is a food that the refugees commonly eat and ate. It needs cooking for the whole morning, 09h00 to about 12h00, depending on the clarity of the sky (sometimes there is some dust or high cirrus cloud or just unspecified haze), but because, as you have said, the heat from CooKits is slow and gentle, it does not matter if the food stays longer in the pot, it may even improve the taste somewhat according to some, and in any case, the slow gentle heat avoids it sticking to the inner walls of the pot, and that is an advantage over fire, that may even cause burning, if the food is not being regularly stirred. It is one of the points women like, after they get used to it, because they can do other things without worrying about the stirring. Also, they quickly get used at keeping cleaner, because stirring over the fire and smoke makes them dirty, and they say that after solar cooking they do no smell after the smoke. Like women everywhere, they are very conscious about their appearance, even in these very difficult conditions.

The pulses most frequently distributed are lentils, yellow and red ones, white beans, red beans and sometimes pigeon peas are found in the market (small markets have sprung up "by themselves" in most camps). It is imperative that they be put into water the evening before, soaked, but even for our own grandmothers that was a "must'. If this is done, and the beans or lentils are cooked with the correct amount of water, the results can be delicious, truly, especially if they are cooked with a little bit of cut onion (that is why we recuperate the shower water for the within compound vegetable plots). It is the particular treat that women may offer to Marie Rose, Patallet and me to share with them if they are particularly happy with solar cooking or just otherwise.

Some say that rice is difficult to cook. It is not at all. Just learn to put in the right amount of water, and that may change according to the origin and type of the rice (round or long). We have seen/eaten some badly cooked rice, but also some that could be served at the Ritz.

Jewish World Watch is handling donations for this project and your support is needed.

[edit] Audio and video

• Spring 2008: The Women of Iridimi - A film by Barbara Grover

• 2008: Solar Cookers for Darfui Refugees - Time Magazine/CNN
  
  

November 2007 YouTube video showing the construction and use of CooKit solar cookers at the Iridimi Refugee Camp

[edit] See also

• A collection of photographs from Iridimi taken in the spring of 2007
• Jewish World Watch
• KoZon Foundation
• Touloum Refugee Camp
• Refugee camps
• Jewish World Watch February 2007 factsheet on its Darfur project
• Marie-Rose Neloum
• July 2006: Slide show showing solar cooking project in camp
• Cooking for large groups

[edit] External links

• February 2009: Simple Tool That Saves Women's Lives - Parade Magazine
• June 2008: Radio Netherlands broadcasts a report on the work of Marie-Rose Neloum working with refugees in Chad (Text, Audio)
• May 2008: Rays of hope for Darfur refugees - Guardian Weekly (UK)
• March 2008: Darfur project cooks up first for Bronfman prize - Jewish Journal
• October 2007: Evaluation report on the Iridimi Refugee Camp project
• Solar Cookers International's page on the Iridimi Refugee Camp
• January 2008: Genocide and Cooking - Los Angeles Times
• December 2006: Frequently-asked questions about SCI/KoZon Chad project
• High-resolution satellite photo of the Iridimi Refugee Camp
• Donate online to support this project