Students at the Culinary Institute of Africa can add another skill to their resume: solar cook
March 2008:Louise Meyer reports on a group of internally displaced persons that are students at the Culinary Institute of Africa. As part of their curriculum they are learning how to solar cook. Meyer sent photographs of several students taking “Masters of Solar Cooking” classes at the Institute’s school in Juba, Sudan. Based in Lokichoggio, Kenya, the non-profit Culinary Institute of Africa is a community service division of the AFEX Group, which provides a number of management and catering services to camps throughout Kenya, Sudan, and elsewhere. The Institute began in 2004 when Terry Light, chief operating officer of AFEX, asked Nancy Crooks to train local Turkana with skills that could gain them employment at various camps and other institutions in the region. With technical assistance from Solar Cookers International (SCI), Crooks was able to incorporate solar cooker use and construction into the curriculum. The Institute offers an accredited, professional culinary education leading to a diploma in food production. SCI also provided training services and helped Crooks secure funding from the Lift Up Africa organization for a solar cooker project to teach Turkana women how to make and use solar cookers, heat-retention devices, and Water Pasteurization Indicators (WAPIs), as well as start a small solar cooker shop.
December 2007: The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) jointly conducted a three-day training session on newly developed solar cookers from 11 to 13 December 2007. The training course was facilitated by an experienced national consultant for ten women living in Serif IDP Camp. The IDP camp is located in West Nyala and is currently home to an estimated 13,000 individuals. The ten women trained learnt how to use the solar cooker to prepare traditional Sudanese dishes. UNIDO provided raw cooking materials for use during the training. On 16 December IOM monitored the group of women and found that eight of the trained women were using the solar cooking for boiling water, cooking potatoes and eggs. The use of such stoves will reduce reliance upon firewood, the collection of which often creates physical risks for women when leaving the safety of the camp, and impacts negatively on the local environment (Source: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/MUMA-7A44DN?OpenDocument).
April 2007: The nonprofit Darfur Peace and Development Organization (DPADO) is incorporating solar cooking as part of its project to establish women’s centers for displaced Darfurians in Sudan. The solar cooking component is coordinated by Stephen Harrigan, who has built and experimented with solar cookers and has demonstrated their use in Darfur. According to Harrigan, DPADO has "a large local Sudanese infrastructure already in place in Darfur to really promote this well" in camps for displaced people. He hopes to begin training in Khartoum this spring. See May 2007 report on solar cooking activities. Contact:Darfur Peace and Development Organization
February 2007:Jewish World Watch is now coordinating donations for people wishing to donate to provide solar cookers to the Darfur refugees in Chad.
August 2006:Solar Cookers International (SCI) is partnering with The KoZon Foundation, a Dutch charitable group, to assist Darfur refugees living in Chad. In 2004, KoZon volunteer Derk Rijks trained fifteen women in the capital, N'Djamena. He returned in early 2005, after getting approval from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to start a solar cooker demonstration project at Iridimi camp, one of the camps hosting Darfur refugees. Marie-Rose Néloum, one of the previously trained women, took the plight of the refugees to heart and joined Rijks to train refugee women to use solar CooKits and teach others, starting in early 2005. Women responded very enthusiastically and those who learned to solar cook fulfilled their promise to teach others. CooKits were soon assembled on-site by refugee women, who earn an income through this activity. A production workshop was completed in early 2006. The workshop is located in a neutral zone of the camp, close to the offices of the camp administrator, CARE. Refugee women from each of the camp's ten zones take turns training new groups of five to six people. The refugee women at Iridimi camp, as well as head trainer Néloum and two other staff, have persevered in promoting solar cooking even as the security situation has grown increasingly unstable since April 2006. As of July 2006 Iridimi camp had 32 certified solar cooking trainers, 21 CooKit assemblers, 566 trained families, and 1200 CooKits distributed, two to four per tent. Fifty-four women were interviewed in July 2006. Thirty-nine of them solar cook every day; twelve solar cook five to six days a week; and three solar cook two to four days a week. To minimize their reliance on firewood, many families would like to maximize use of all their CooKits. However, about a quarter of the families have sold one or more of their cooking pots in exchange for precious food. SCI and The KoZon Foundation are working together to provide supplies to make CooKits, training, monitoring and accountability to brighten the lives of Darfur refugees at Iridimi camp in Chad. Groups and organizations such as the Darfur Assistance Project and Jewish World Watch, both based in southern California (USA), and many individuals have donated to SCI in support of this project. Additional logistical and communications support from UNHCR and CARE International is invaluable in continuing project operations. Barring significant disruptions, each Iridimi camp household will have two or more CooKits by early 2007.
[edit]Climate, Culture, and Special Considerations
