Solar Oven Partners (SOP), based in Brookings, South Dakota (USA), recently shipped 500 unassembled solar box cookers to Haiti as part of its ongoing efforts there. Working with local volunteers, a United Methodist Volunteers in Mission team assembled 250 of the cookers and also helped to convert a donated 40-foot (12.2-meter) sea container into a solar cooker storage and assembly facility. Solar Oven Partners is working to train a local Haitian woman to lead future production efforts in Haiti.
March 2008: For nearly a decade, Solar Oven Partners has been providing Haitians with needed relief from wood-fueled cooking in the form of solar ovens. Volunteers in Brookings, South Dakota (USA) use donated or discounted raw materials to build numerous solar oven components, which are then boxed up and shipped to Haiti for final assembly. The wooden, box-style solar ovens cost about $60 to make with volunteer labor, and are based on one of Richard Wareham’s Sunstove® designs. Each solar oven is packaged with three black cooking pots, a Water Pasteurization Indicator (WAPI), and a recipe booklet. Haitians pay a modest fee for the ovens, which they receive upon completion of a training course.
Five South Dakota State University football players volunteered to load the sea container with 1000 unassembled solar box cookers destined for Haiti.
Last July, a team of SOP volunteers visited Haiti for the 22nd time. They assembled 74 solar cookers and trained 80 families how to cook and pasteurize water with solar energy. Throughout the year, Haitians Montas and Raymonde Joseph conduct additional SOP trainings and sell solar ovens. They historically relied on the volunteer teams to come to Haiti and assemble cookers, which was not always sufficient to meet demand. In response, SOP has contracted with a young Haitian woman named Italis Jeanne Milcar to assure that enough ovens are available for the trainings. In just a few short months, Milcar had already assembled nearly 350 cookers and 100 WAPIs! Two years ago, SOP converted a 12.2-meter sea container for use as a storage facility for solar cookers in Haiti. They recently purchased a second container, and after 10 months of hard work, were able to fill it to capacity with components for an additional 1000 cookers, soon to be shipped to Haiti.
A Haiti woman testing new add-on reflectors available for the Dakota SUNSTOVE(r) solar cooker
August 2006: Solar Oven Partners, has been active in Haiti for years, where it has distributed thousands of solar cookers. In a recent edition of their newsletter, Solar Oven Partners presented the results of a survey of 15 Haitian solar cooks. Asked how many days they would use their solar cookers during a 10-day sunny period, seven said every day, two said seven to eight days, and the remaining six would solar cook two to five of the ten days. Solar meals have included meat, macaroni, cake, rice, beans, fish, vegetables, bread, eggs, and cornbread. Eleven of the 15 surveyed said they had explained solar cookers to others who then became interested in acquiring their own. On average, families indicated that charcoal now lasts two to three times longer than it did before solar cooking. Solar Oven Partners plans to distribute 1,000 more solar cookers during 2006.
