For Beneficiaries, Safety Trumps Efficiency

During the past year in Gulu, Uganda, Action Against Hunger introduced beneficiaries to a new method of cooking. Lorena stoves, we explained, would cut food-preparation time in half and slash fuel consumption.

We thought beneficiaries would leap to embrace the stoves. At first, however, beneficiaries weren't impressed. When we added, almost as an afterthought, that incidentally the stoves would also be safer than traditional cooking methods, their interest was finally piqued. And once the beneficiaries installed the stoves and began cooking with them, their reports of satisfaction averaged 3.28 on a scale of 1 to 4.

Traditionally, Ugandans in Gulu cooked on open fires outside their homes. Not only did these fires threaten children who played near the open flames, but occasionally winds would blow sparks that set fire to adjacent homes.

Lorena stoves, by contrast, are enclosed and not exposed to wind, and they're located indoors where carousing children can't run at full tilt.

How the Stove is Built

Beneficiaries build the stoves themselves. Homemakers mix water into a blend of sand, anthill soil, and top soil. Then stove-builders shape the mixture into a box that encloses protruding tree limbs or banana stems that have been cut short. When removed, these cylindrical shapes leave holes in the box. One hole on the side will serve as the fire chamber. When another cylinder of wood is removed, it leaves a duct that connects to a chimney above the stove to vent heat and smoke rising from the fire chamber. The stoves must dry for three weeks before the wood can be removed.

When the wood is finally pulled out, beneficiaries cut openings in the top of the stove that reach down to the internal duct. This creates openings through which head from the cooking fire will rise, and when the stove is finished, beneficiaries can place cooking pots on top of these openings. But first the stove must cure for another six weeks. Finally, the internal duct is connected to the venting chimney. (See the illustration on the top, which was used to explain the building process to the beneficiaries.

Our teams received two-day training sessions so that our workers could in turn teach beneficiaries how to build and use Lorena stoves. We gave a saucepan to every household that constructed a Lorena stove. Altogether, we distributed 3,050 pans in five target camps. And when our beneficiaries finished learning about the stoves, we discovered to our delight that they in turn trained friends and neighbors. Now a majority of households in the camps use Lorena stoves.

The Benefits of a Lorena Stove

• Lorena stoves reduce the average time to cook a pot of beans from 3 hours 17 minutes using traditional fires to 1 hour 36 minutes, saving an average of 1 hour 41 minutes in cooking time.
• Households further reported that they had been using an average of 1.7 bundles of firewood a week using traditional stoves. But with Lorena stoves, households used an average of 0.7 bundles of firewood per week—a weekly saving of 1 bundle of firewood, which reduced not only fuel consumption but time spent gathering the wood.
• Because women in the camps spend less time cooking and gathering wood, they have more time for other beneficial activities.
• Reducing wood consumption for fuel has also greatly reduced the need to cut down trees, which in turn slows down environmental degradation and protects the natural environment.
• Lorena stoves have greatly improved indoor hygiene. Previously, cooking inside the home produced smoke, unhealthy to breathe and coating interiors with soot. With Lorena stoves, there's no smoke.
• No sparks from the new stoves have ignited anyone's house.

 

For beneficiaries in Gulu, Lorena stoves have become the sophisticated way to prepare dinner—the field version of Vulcan ranges. We expect to extend this sophistication to our projects elsewhere.