Namibia

From Solar Cooking

1 News and Recent Developments
2 The History of Solar Cooking in Namibia
3 Climate, Culture, and Special Considerations
- 3.1 See also
4 Documents
- 4.1 Reports
- 4.2 Articles in the media
5 Contacts
6 See Also

[edit] News and Recent Developments

May 2007: Namibia: Solar Baking Oven Would Save Wood, Environment and Electricity - New Era
August 2006: A solar cooker project in Ongwediva won an "Inspiration Lives in Africa" award from Namibia's Standard Bank in April. Ongwediva's Solar Stove Project, now in its eighth year, introduces solar cooking to women to combat deforestation and to provide employment opportunities like solar bakeries and catering. The award, worth 50,000 Namibian dollars, will be used to increase marketing activities.

[edit] The History of Solar Cooking in Namibia

A workshop was presented at the Varese, Italy, meeting in 1999 by a solar promoter, Harald Schutt. He described the construction and dissemination of solar stoves in Namibia over a period of 8 years in the 1990s. His initial exposure was provided in a workshop in Germany presented by representatives of the ULOG group (see description in the section on Multi-National Promoters). Following that, Mr. Schutt worked in Namibia, initially in a refugee camp and later in settled communities, teaching Namibians how to build a wooden box cooker and how to use the device. Female carpentry-trainers were taught the techniques of making the overt, and considerable experimentation was done to keep costs low while still producing quality devices.

This solar promoter has distilled lessons he has learned in many years. His view include the following: use a solar stove yourself, use schools as teaching sites, create social clubs around solar cooking, train builders of stoves of high quality; launch publicity campaigns to raise awareness, includingd emonstrations at sports events, supermarkets, clinics, and schools (Varese, p. 215). Nothing is known however about the outcome of this work in Namibia.