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Solar Cooking Netherlands

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An Eritrea solar cooker project organized by the Solar Cooking Foundation the Netherlands recently edged out 300 nominees to win an award for small-scale development projects. The award, presented by Dutch organizations the National Committee for International Cooperation and Sustainable Development (NCDO) and the Wild Geese Foundation, carries a monetary value of nearly $6,000. SCN won based on project quality, thoroughness of the organization, efficient working methods, financial transparency, and the "for women, by women" aspect of the project. This year SCN hopes to enable 4,500 families to solar cook with simple panel-type solar cookers based on Solar Cookers International's "CooKit." Thus far, 1,500 women have been trained, of which 700 have purchased CooKits for about $3.50 each. A new project coordinator, appointed by the National Union of Eritrean Women (NUEW), will organize future workshops and follow-up activities, and supervise a store where solar cookers are produced and sold. Project beneficiaries include low-income women in the Anseba region, and internally displaced persons in the Gash Barka zone.

The Eritrea project continues to spread solar cooking knowledge in the Anseba region. As of January 2006, women from eight villages in the region, who previously purchased CooKits, attend monthly classes to further their skills and work through any issues. SCN hopes to extend these classes to 32 more villages in the region by the end of this year.

Local women are fabricating CooKits in the city of Keren. One hundred CooKits have been made, and more are in the works (pending re-supply of aluminum foil, which must be imported). According to SCN representative Janine Pater, local fabrication is important: “This is a major step forward in accomplishing the objective that now, and in the future, everyone in Anseba will be in a position to buy and/or make a CooKit without restriction.”

SCN chairwoman Clara Thomas is currently organizing follow-up meetings with new solar cooks to collect feedback and discuss challenges and success. According to Ms. Thomas, evaluation and adaptation are essential. "In this way," she says, "a tradition of thousands of years of firewood cooking can be transformed to solar cooking with purely the sun as heat source." At least one woman in the Hagaz village seems already convinced. Of her experiences thus far, she says, "We prepare goat, rice, lentils and shiro in the CooKit and the taste is excellent!"

[edit] News and recent developments

  • September 2009: The outcome of the conference in March is a large scale Integrated Sustainable Solar Cooking project in 4 countries of the Horn of Africa. It is a three year plan in eight clusters: six in Ethiopia, one in Djibouti-Somalia and one in Sudan. Abiye Ashenafi [HoArec] will manage the project and SCN is cooperating partner, trainer and advisor. On this moment SCN’s Jacomine Immink and Clara Thomas have designed manuals for instructors and end-users. They contain many visual materials for illiterate people. In cooperation with Wietske Jongbloed [KOZON] , a comprehensive manual for the production of Cookits and Water pasteurization Indicators [WAPis] . The expectation is that the project really start in 2010. On that moment 10.000 Cookits and WAPis will be needed. The manuals will be translated into local languages.
  • March 2009: In Ethiopia the pilot project of  PISDA and SCN has been very successful. on this moment 1500 households use wood-saving cookers. At the monthly PISDA meetings, participating women motivate each other to sell CooKit bread and cakes at the local market.  A new production- and training centre has been opened and has been visited through representatives of HoArec [Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre] {www.Hoarec.org}. The success of this project has inspired Janny Poley, the first secretary of the Embassy of the Netherlands. On her initiative a working conference with a department of the University of Addis Ababa has been organised on the 13 the and 14 the of March. 
  • November 2007: Solar Cooking Netherlands (SCN) has teamed up with Partnership for Integrated Sustainable Development Association (PISDA), a local non-governmental organization, to introduce solar cooking in four rural villages around Debre Zeit. PISDA has worked with female heads of households on a number of projects, such as tree planting, fuel-efficient wood stoves, and savings and credit associations. SCN’s Clara Thomas, along with PISDA’s Ato Guillilat, left early mornings on a two-wheeled horse wagon to visit the four rural villages. They first introduced solar cookers to village elders, and then spent a week training a group of solar cooking instructors. A year-long initial program was agreed upon to ensure continued follow up in the form of monthly collective solar cooking meetings to share experiences and advice. The project will likely expand next year. A local solar fabricator in Addis Ababa — Bereket Solar — will produce CooKit solar cookers by hand for the project. Towards the end of 2007 he will transfer his experience and knowledge to the women in rural areas so that they can make their own CooKits. Injera, a pancake-like bread, is a local staple that cannot be cooked with simple solar cookers. (It requires a 60-centimeter diameter pan and baking temperature of at least 220°C.) A research program is underway to find a solar method for baking injera. The present cooking culture does not permit introducing collective solar injera baking through a large bakery or otherwise. In the meantime, injera will continue to be baked three times per week on a fuel-efficient wood stove.
  • March, 2006: The Eritrea solar cooker project organized by the foundation Solar Cooking Netherlands continues to spread solar cooking knowledge in the Anseba region. As of January 2006, women from eight villages in the region, who previously purchased CooKits, attend monthly classes to further their skills and work through any issues. SCN hopes to extend these classes to 32 more villages in the region by the end of 2006. Local women are fabricating CooKits in the city of Keren. One hundred CooKits have been made, and more are in the works (pending re-supply of aluminum foil, which must be imported). According to SCN representative Janine Pater, local fabrication is important: “This is a major step forward in accomplishing the objective that now, and in the future, everyone in Anseba will be in a position to buy and/or make a CooKit without restriction.”
  • November 2005: An Eritrea solar cooker project organized by the foundation Solar Cooking Eritrea Netherlands (SCEN) recently edged out 300 nominees to win an award for small-scale development projects. The award, presented by Dutch organizations the National Committee for International Cooperation and Sustainable Development (NCDO) and the Wild Geese Foundation, carries a monetary value of nearly $6,000. SCEN won based on project quality, thoroughness of the organization, efficient working methods, financial transparency, and the "for women, by women" aspect of the project. This year SCEN hopes to enable 4,500 families to solar cook with simple panel-type solar cookers based on Solar Cookers International's "CooKit." Thus far, 1,500 women have been trained, of which 700 have purchased CooKits for about $3.50 each. A new project coordinator, appointed by the National Union of Eritrean Women (NUEW), will organize future workshops and follow-up activities, and supervise a store where solar cookers are produced and sold. Project beneficiaries include low-income women in the Anseba region, and internally displaced persons in the Gash Barka zone. SCEN chairwoman Clara Thomas is currently organizing follow-up meetings with new solar cooks to collect feedback and discuss challenges and success. According to Ms. Thomas, evaluation and adaptation are essential. "In this way," she says, "a tradition of thousands of years of firewood cooking can be transformed to solar cooking with purely the sun as heat source." At least one woman in the Hagaz village seems already convinced. Of her experiences thus far, she says, "We prepare goat, rice, lentils and shiro in the CooKit and the taste is excellent!"

[edit] Audio and video

Local Fabrication of the CooKit in Eritrea
Cooking with the sun

[edit] External links

[edit] Contact

Clara Thomas
Solar Cooking Netherlands
Prof. van Reeslaan 11
1261 CS Blaricum
Netherlands

cookit.ned@wanadoo.nl
http://www.solarcookingeritrea.nl/index_eng.html, http://www.solarcooking.nl

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