About the Solar Cooker Project
Jewish World Watch (JWW) works to fulfill the post-Holocaust oath of “Never Again” to combat genocide and other dire violations of human rights internationally – the current genocide in Darfur
The situation in the Touloum refugee camp is very similar to that of the Iridimi Refugee Camp pictured here.
being one of the most pressing issues. JWW mobilizes the community through three modes of action: education, advocacy, and refugee relief. The Solar Cooker Project is part of JWW’s refugee relief arm—immediate support to the people affected by such atrocities, in this case women and girls.
JWW’s Solar Cooker Project (SCP) is committed to protecting refugee women and girls from rape and other egregious forms of violence. Women and girls who have fled the genocide in Darfur, Sudan are particularly vulnerable while performing the critical task of collecting firewood for cooking. The SCP’s mission is to reduce the frequency of these heinous crimes by providing women from refugee camps with an alternative cooking option: the solar cooker. Solar cookers, which don't require firewood, enable women to remain within the relative safety of the camp.
The vision of the JWW Solar Cooker Project is to create measurable impacts in the refugee camps that are in line with the United Nations Millennium Goals developed in 2000. Specifically:
- Diminish the vulnerability of women to sexual violence and provide them with greater personal security.
- Create an environmentally sustainable solution by using the renewable energy of the sun and drastically reducing the reliance on firewood.
- Contribute to a global partnership for development by training and employing refugees in the assembly and repair of solar cookers, which provides them with decent work.
Specifics About the Touloum Refugee Camp
The Touloum refugee camp, located in Chad on the Sudanese border, houses more than 23,441 Darfur refugees, mainly women and children. After setting up a large solar cooking project in the Iridimi refugee camp in Chad for Darfur refugees, the KoZon Foundation and Jewish World Watch have constructed a manufacturing plant and store room in the Touloum refugee camp in March of 2007. As of June 2009, about 5,000 women have been trained to use the solar cookers. Currently about 16,000 cookers have been distributed.
In early 2005, solar cooking was introduced to Darfur refugees living in the Iridimi Refugee Camp in Chad by Dr. Derk Rijks of the KoZon Foundation. Jewish World Watch’s Solar Cooker Project adopted this endeavor in 2006 and has expanded it to provide solar cookers and training to three refugee camps so far.
Replacement cookers are provided for the families, which are made up of 5-7 people per tent, often one woman as the head of household, with up to three of her own children and three orphans.
The area is devoid of vegetation; there is abundant sun and very little rainfall—between 3” and 5” (7.5 - 12.5 cm) yearly. The main food currently distributed in Iridimi is maize meal, a food the refugees commonly eat. It is sometimes accompanied by a maize-soya-meal mixture, if available. The pulse plants most frequently distributed are yellow and red lentils, white and red beans, and sometimes pigeon peas. It requires cooking for about three hours, depending on the clarity of the sky. The heat from solar cookers is slow and gentle, so while the food stays longer in the pot, it doesn’t stick to the walls or need to be regularly stirred, which is an advantage over the potential to burn food with fire. Women can do other things while the food is cooking, without worrying about stirring. Additionally, there isn’t the lingering smell of smoke as there is with a fire—like women everywhere, these refugee women are conscious about their appearance, even in these very difficult conditions. Solar cookers are also able to be used to pasteurize drinking water, reducing incidence of water-borne diseases especially in children.
, and Tchad Solaire (“Chad Sun”), the NGO that runs the SCP on the ground in Chad.
Jewish World Watch is handling donations for this project and your support is needed!
The Benefits of Solar Cooking
- Solar cooking helps reduce the need for frequent firewood collection outside the relative safety of the camp, reducing the risk of violence towards women and girls.
- Two solar cookers can save one ton of wood each year.
- There is no need to tend a fire so women are free to do other tasks while food is cooking.
- The production of the solar cookers provides income-generating opportunities for female refugees.
- Solar cooking, as part of an integrated cooking method, reduces the amount of wood necessary for cooking, helping to alleviate tensions between the refugees and locals, whose already slim wood supply was suddenly impacted by thousands of refugees.
What You Can Do
Help provide more refugee camps with solar cookers by raising AWARENESS and raising FUNDS. Make a DONATION—just $30 supports one family by providing two solar cookers, training and two pot holders.
Contact
Jewish World Watch
17514 Ventura Blvd.
Suite 206 Encino, CA 91316
www.JewishWorldWatch.org
818-501-1836
News and recent developments
- June 2009: Wietske Jongbloed reports that all refugee families in the Touloum Refugee Camp now have solar cookers.
- February 2009: Simple Tool That Saves Women's Lives - Parade Magazine
- May 2008: In Touloum Refugee Camp, 5,000 women have been trained in solar cooking, and several thousand await training; 500 women continue to be trained to solar cook each month. Forty refugee women work part-time as auxiliary trainers alongside the Tchad Solaire team. Currently 24 women have been trained as solar cooker assemblers, thus providing the women with a new skill and an opportunity to generate income for their families.
See also
- KoZon Foundation
- Jewish World Watch
- Iridimi refugee camp
- Refugee camps
- Jewish World Watch February 2007 factsheet on its Darfur project