I am delighted today to get news of an award (Gender Just Climate Solutions Award) that was given to Sonita Mbah from Betterworld Cameroon. She actually received the award in 2017, but could not participate in the event. So today I saw the press conference recording from COP 24 which I will share below.

Sonita is championing the project we started together in 2015/16: the Africa Kitchen Revolution. We started in the local village with a group of women and taught them to build rocket cook stoves. The model for this was to teach a group by building or two example stoves in home kitchens and then ask those women to build stoves for the rest of the members of the group. In 2016 we held a training for trainers to be able to reach more women .

 

If you listen to Sonita’s statement the intention we set together has been moving forward:

Women are teaching women to build their own mud stoves.

Following this work in Cameroon I have shared the stove building process again in Kenya. And the rocket stove technology has been moving into a few other countries in Africa . Here’s an example from the Gambia by builder Alagie Manneh:

To me it comes down to this:

In order to serve the needs of the women who in many cases have no access to cash income, a technology has to be culturally acceptable, attainable, locally doable and independent from industrial processes . If the women succeed to spread the skills and continue to develop the design to suit their particular cooking needs, this project is successful.

If you are interested in trainings for stoves like this please contact me. I will be in East Africa in 2019 and can be available to groups or organizations.

Here now as promised the award presentation: Sonita is speaking at 16:25