Solar Cookers World Network
From Solar Cooking
Contents |
[edit] About SCWNet
Solar Cookers World Network (SCWNet) - formerly Solar Cookers International Association (SCIA)
- is a worldwide community
of independent agencies and individual promoters and advocates of solar cookers, pasteurizers and food processers. SCWNet was formed at the 2006
International Conference on Solar Cookers and Food Processing in
Granada, Spain [1] and revised and renamed following
the 2009 Solar Food Conference in Indore, India.
As of February 2009 members include 95 agencies and 160 individuals from 48 countries (list below) and represent diverse devices, strategies, and programs. All members - both organizations and individual - have pages in this wiki unless they choose not to. All are encouraged to edit and add information to their page as needed. A trifold brochure in PDF format lists all the members for use as an advocacy tool, and a Google map shows the general location of SCWNet member organizations around the world. (The map takes about 30 seconds to display completely, but it's worth it! Click on a bubble to get more information.)
SCWNet's purpose: to improve health, economics and environments through collective actions to spread solar cooking, pasteurizing and food processing.
SCWNet's messages:
- Solar cookers are saving lives and improving health, economics and environments for about 2 million families and are urgently needed by millions more in fuel-scarce, sun-rich areas.
- Solar cookers often reduce need for other fuels by 1/3.
- Virtually all foods can be cooked as well or better in one or more types of solar cookers.
- Today's solar food technologies are clean, safe, convenient and pollution-free; they save fuel, time and money; and they reduce respiratory and intestinal diseases and burns from open fires.
- Multiple benefits of cooking, pasteurizing and food processing are well documented in many regions.
[edit] Contact
SCWNet Secretariat, Bev Blum, USA
scwnet@solarcooking.org
or
blumbev@aol.com
[edit] Recent news and developments
- April 2009 New newsletter for the new Canada/USA/Europe Net. Scroll down for more information.
- February 2009: SCWNet Newsletter
- November 2008: SCIA Newsletter
- October 2008: SCIA Newsletter
- May 2008: SCIA Newsletter
- March 2008: News from the SCI Association - Solar Cooker Review
- January 2008: SCIA Newsletter
- July 2007: SCIA Newsletter
- March 2007: SCI Association: Ready to be heard - Solar Cooker Review
[edit] Structure
[edit] Steering Committee
Lead agencies for each of six Sections appoint reps to the Steering Committee.
These Sections replace/revise small Task Forces. Members are encouraged to participate either a) by adding to the Sections below, or b) more formally in any of the sections at http://solarcooking.org/discuss. Each section works mostly independently among its interested participants to avoid any centralized 'bottleneck.'
[edit] ADVOCACY NET
Advocacy Net's purpose is to encourage advocacy at all levels by SCWNet
members to educate policy makers that solar cookers, pasteurizers and food
processers address their institutional goals.
Advocacy Net is represented on the SCWNet
Steering Committee for 2009-2010 by:
Solar Cookers International (SCI) reps Dr. Sonia Heptonstall (Switzerland)
and Dr. A.J. Lederman (USA) and
Solar Household Energy (SHE-Inc.) rep Patricia McArdle
Advocacy resolutions to date
[edit] TECHNOLOGY NET
To develop standards for evaluating solar cookers performance for
diverse consumer needs; develop trainig to help members to upscale capacity to
produce, distribute, and provide training and maintaince services. Steering Committee rep:
Promoters & Researchers in Non Conventional Energy (PRINCE) (India)
- Prof. Ajay Chandak
FOUR REGIONAL NETWORKS:
To encourage regional networking and participation in all SCWNet sections.
Also guide and monitor progress for SCWNet overall. Steering Committee reps:
[edit] AFRICA NET
Represented on the SCWNet Steering Committee by
Solar Cookers for Africa Network - Crosby Menzies (South Africa)
[edit] ASIA PACIFIC NET
Represented on the SCWNet Steering Committee by
Center for Rural Technology Nepal (CRTN) - Ganesh Ram Shrestha (Nepal)
Barli Development Institute for Rural Women - pending
International Center for Networking, Ecology, Education &
Re-integration (ICNEER) - Eng. Deepak Gadhia (India)
[edit] IBERO-LATIN AMERICA NET
Represented on the SCWNet Steering Committee by
Red Cosinas Solares (RECOSOL) Prof. Ing. Pedro Serrano
[edit] CANADA/USA/EUROPE NET
Represented by Sharon Cousins, Viola, Idaho, USA
Current Areas of Focus:
- Youth Outreach (Today's youth are tommorow's Peace Corps volunteers.)
- Homeless Outreach (Solar cooking can help refugees from foreclosures and layoffs, too.)
- Increased Visibility (The more people see how effective this excellent technology is, the more they will support solar cooking projects at home and abroad.)
- Dynamically Increase Membership in Our Region.
It is time to take solar cooking to the next level. You can help! Sign up for the new Canada/USA/Europe Zone Network Newsletter (CUEZ-NET NEWS). (This is not a list-serve with lots of emails, just a once or twice a month newsletter with a few extra emails as we're getting going.) If you do any sort of solar cooking teaching or advocacy or demonstrations within our region, the information and inspiration from this newsletter will help your work. If we CUE each other in on what we're doing (by emailing information snippets or reports to Sharon Cousins, who will summarize them in the newsletter as well as sending out some ideas of her own), we can inspire and encourage each other. Sign up now! Just send an email to Sharon at writersguildgal@moscow.com with "solar" or "SCWNet" or "CUEZ-NET NEWS" on the subject line and tell her you want to be on the list for the new newsletter. If possible, provide at least a little information on your solar cooking work and focus. Collective action can increase the effectiveness of individual effort, so we accomplish more without doing much more work.
For discussion of the new Canada/USA/Europe Zone go here.
See also Internet discussion forum.
[edit] Membership
- Organizations and individuals who support SCWNet's purpose are welcome to join. There are no dues for 2009. Donations are encouraged but optional.
- TO JOIN this worldwide network of advocates and promoters of solar food technologies, copy-and-paste the SCWNet Membership form into email and send completed form to scwnet@solarcooking.org
OR
print out & mail to Secretariat Bev Blum, 4271 Round Valley Circle, Stockton, CA, 95207 USA.
- DONATIONS ARE WELCOME and will support the all-volunteer work of this network. Donate by credit card or PayPal through our online application. All donations are tax-deductible in the USA through SCI, a 501-c-3 charitable organization. THANK YOU.
SCWNet Membership Drive! Increasing our numbers will help solar cooking gain the respect it deserves. Print, cut, and carry handy SCWNet flyers [2] to hand out to everyone you know or meet who is interested in promoting solar cooking and does not already belong. Encourage them to join, and make sure they know that membership is free for 2009.
[edit] Solar Cookers World Network Members by World Region and Country
[edit] Internet discussion forum
An Internet discussion forum that allows association members to freely share ideas and experiences has recently been launched.
