Cook Stoves

Cookstoves Save Lives and Trees

It's amazing what a stove can do. In the highlands of Guatemala, it can literally save human lives as well as trees. Women in Guatemala spend hours each day collecting scarce firewood. The wood they bring home on their backs is burned in open fires. The smoke coats their lungs with soot, equivalent to smoking 20 cigarettes a day. Many women have respiratory problems that reduce their life expectancy by several years. Open fires also cause many burns for both the women and their children.

The Stove Solution
Guatemalan scientists and social workers have developed a simple fuel-efficient cookstove. These stoves save 75% of the firewood required for an open fire. Each stove saves one 20 year-old forest tree each year. The stove also adds many years to a woman's life by taking the soot out of the house through a stovepipe so that she doesn't breathe it.   Made from native materials, each costs only $95.00. A family provides $14.00 toward their stove, and a widow provides $7.00.

Re-building a Life
Antonia Catarina lives in the village of Union Victoria. Her family and others in her community were refugees during the war in Guatemala. For fifteen years they hid in the mountains, moving weekly or monthly to keep from being attacked. Now the war is over. Only half of their community members survived, but they are committed to rebuilding. Antonia's family has a cookstove. She says how grateful she is now to cook without breathing in smoke and to not have her eyes burn. "My husband always thought I was crying because I missed him not being back from the fields," she teases, laughing. "But really I was crying from the wood smoke in my eyes" Antonia says her new stove uses only 4-5 sticks of wood to cook with, rather than the usual 12-15 sticks for an open fire. For Antonia, that's pretty amazing.