Save firewood by better stoves in Mwanga

Suomenkielinen esite projektista

Save firewood by improved stoves, Mwanga, Tanzania

Jan 2010 - Dec 2011

This project was designed to address the following problems in the eastern lowlands of the Mwanga district:

- Limited or no knowledge of firewood-saving stoves or solar cookers

- Environmental destruction by collection and burning of large amounts of firewood

- Women and girls walk far and too often to collect firewood or firewood needs to be bought

- Health risks due to the emission gases of inefficient burning

- Poor firewood quality due to high water content -

- After decades of firewood-saving stove projects, proper comparative data between different models is not available

The overall objective:

Less environmental destruction caused by firewood fetching in 7 villages in the eastern lowlands of Mwanga District; women and their daughters use less time for fetching firewood (or less money to buy) and can build simple mud stoves for themselves; and artisans can build several stove models and provide stoves for themselves and generate income by selling them.

To reach the objective we:

- Raise awareness in the multiple options of firewood-saving stoves and solar cooking (village awareness raising meetings)

- Train in the construction of Lorena mud-stoves. Anyone in each village can apply.

- Train the best builders to build other models of stoves (improved Lorena**, TaTeDo brick and cement, institutional stoves) and simple solar cookers (cookit), and train in business planning

- Build stoves to five primary schools that currently offer lunches to children

- Conduct a comparative study of firewood-saving stoves

- Raise awareness in the impact of firewood quality (fetching, buying and storage practices)

Total budget €39,660:

- By the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland €33,720.

- Self-funding €2970 (€1470 for 2010 and €1500 for 2011).

- Liana voluntary work worth €2970.

What has been done so far? (read from bottom up)

Sept-Oct Evaluation interviews to the first participants of Lorena building courses (sample of 42, six in each village, about the endurance of Lorena, user opinions, building for other people).
Sept Four more schools and nursery are contacted for stove building.
21-22nd Sept Two day solar cooking and cookit building course was arranged for 15 women in Mwanga.
July 15th Testing of 7 different models of stoves has started (Upesi with removable bottom, Upesi with fixed bottom, Vita, Vita with chimney, Brick and Cement stove, Lorena and three stones. Boiling point tests (brining 2 litres of water to boiling point) were done to all these. Controlled cooking tests (boiling 3dl of green grams in 2 litres of water) were done with Upesi with removable bottom, Vita with chimney, Lorena and three stones. Tests were completed on the 23rd of September.
August 9th 2011 Materials are provided to 3 metal fundis in order to assist them to start marketing Vita stoves.
June-July 2011 Looking for market routes and potential sellers for Upesi stoves in Mwanga and surrounding villages. Upes stoves have been very popular and as they are affordable (4500Tsh) to most of the people it makes sense to make them available without the project also elsewhere.
June 2011 More schools are contacted about their interest to build a school stove.
18th June Another batch of Upesi stoves were bought from Mary Donald of Jipe for both Mwanga rainwater project and Kili project group members.Stoves are sold to group members without subsidy.
25th May First batch of improved Upesi stoves was bought from the potter Mary Donald. She make two models, one stove with removable/replacable grate, another stove made out of one piece. 23 pieces were bought and delivered to Liana Kilimajaro and Mwanga rainwater harvesting projects. Stoves are sold to group members without subsidy.
24th May Kwangu secondary school building finished as part of the training for fundis.
5-10th May Second part of the fundi training for masons. School stove building in Butu Primary School started.
26th April - 4 May. A school stove was built as part of the fundi tranining in Kigonigoni Secondary School. Moudy Nyimbile trained 4 fundis, two from Kigonigoni and two from Butu. These four were the only ones amongst the best builders from the first Lorena course who could handle cement with adequate skill.
26th April Eija and Kigingi visited schools, some stove committee members and fundis for school stove building arrangements and for future activities. The Upesi potter lady was visited in Jipe and an order placed for 20 stoves to start with.
Collaboration with a potter in Jipe has resulted in an improved model of Upesi stove. This stove has a grate to improve burning and its measurements are more accurately calculated for efficient cooking.
Brick Lorena courses for Kigonigoni (15 students), Butu (7 students) and Ngulu (6 students) are lined up for early March. Also, another brick and cement stove building course will be held in early March in Kigonigoni for 3 students who have experience in using cement.
A building course to train how to build a household size brick and cement stove for two pots was organised to the best students from the first courses who had experience in using cement. This course was held in Kambi ya Simba (21-25 Feb, 5 students from Kambi ya Simba, Butu and Jipe). All best students from the first courses were invited to take part in a one day course to learn how to do a more durable variation of the Lorena mud stove, a brick Lorena. Courses were held as follows: 26th Feb in Kivisini (11 students invited), 27th Kwanyange (8 students invited).
Best students from the Lorena courses have been contacted in January 2011 about the opportunity for further building training.
Four schools have been contacted in November and December for the arrangements of stove building. Schools have set up plans to raise part of the funding.
Training courses to teach how to build Lorena 2-pot mud stoves started at the end of June. The aim is to build at least the same number of stoves as there are participants on the course.
- 29 June - 1 July in Jipe, 10 females and 3 males participated, 10 stoves built, 7 excellent builders

- 3-5 July in Butu, 10 women and 9 men participated, 9 stoves built, 7 excellent builders

- 7-9, 11-13, and 20-24 July in Kigonigoni, 20 women and 9 men participated, 25 stoves built, 17 excellent builders

- 24-27 and 28-31 July, in Kambi ya Simba, 11 women and 6 men participated, 20 stoves built, 10 excellent builders
- 1-4 and 5-8 August in Kivisini, women and 4 men participated, 21 stoves built, 17 excellent builders

- 19-21 Sept Ngulu, 7 women and 3 men participated, stoves built 10, 6 excellent builders
- 22-25 Sept Kwanyange, , 8 women and 2 men participated, stoves built 9, 8 excellent builders
Second committee meetings were held in June for the selection of students. Finally (after some confusion about selection principles within committees and a repeated selection process in Kigonigoni, Kambi ya Simba and Kivisini) students were selected as follows:
- Butu 19 applicants, 13 selected (9 women, 4 men, one course)
- Kigonigoni 34 applicants, after some mix-up with the selection process all were selected (23 women, 11 men, three courses)
- Jipe 16 applicants, 13 selected (11 women, 2 men, one course)
- Kivisini 17 applicants, 17 selected (14 women, 3 men, two courses) four more appeared on the course!
- Kambi ya Simba 20 applicants, 17 or 20 selected (12 females, 8 males, two courses)
Kwanyange and Ngulu failed to follow our timetable.
First committee meetings were arranged in each village in early May. Advertisement about the course were prepared by the committees and put on walls, and application forms were prepared and made available at committee chair's and secretary's home.
Village awareness raising meetings were held in seven villages,
- Ngulu (14th April, number of men 52 and women 36)
- Kigonigoni (15th April, 71 men, 16 women)
- Butu (15th April, 41 men, 34 women)
- Kambi ya Simba (22th April, 38 men, 38 women)
- Jipe (22th April, 37men, 34 women)
- Kivisini (23th April, 17 men, 22 women)
- Kwanyange (23th April, 27 men, 17 women)
Our intention was to start the project in nine villages, however, two (Kwakoa and Toloha) failed to start. Awareness was raised in the health hazards of indoor smoke, local environmental consequences of tree cutting, climate change implications of forest destruction and wood burning, role of trees in biodiversity conservation. Vita, Upesi and a cookit solar cooker (that raised a lot of interest) were shown in the meetings and we had photos and pictures of the importable models of Lorena mud-stove, improved Lorena and TaTeDo brick and cement stove. A short description of the intended project was given to the participants. At the end of the meeting a committee was selected in each village to organise announcement of a training course, to prepare application forms, to select trainees, and to do all the local arrangements for the training courses.
Project started in March 2010. Village meetings were arranged with the village authorities with the help of Mifipro (NGO) of Kigonigoni in March 2010.

** http://www.energyandminerals.go.ug/pdf/HOUSEHOLD%20Stoves%20Construction%20Manual.pdf