The Rotary Club of Briarcliff Manor has long been a strong supporter of The Cookstove Project (CSP).
That relationship runs deep: three members of the Briarcliff Manor Rotary Club currently serve on The Cookstove Project's Board of Directors.
That connection helped inspire an exciting new idea: a cause-based Rotary satellite club dedicated to advocating for and supporting the work of The Cookstove Project.
Briarcliff Rotarian Jeff Cadge a Cookstove Project board member brought the idea of a satellite club to the board and other supporters based around the country—people who believed strongly in CSP's mission.
The potential is enormous. By creating a network of passionate advocates within Rotary, the new satellite club could introduce hundreds or perhaps thousands of Rotarians to the clean-cooking crisis, help raise awareness and financial support, and ultimately enable The Cookstove Project to train and employ more Cookstove Masters and build many more clean cookstoves for families who desperately need them.
The Need Is Enormous
Around 2.1 billion people worldwide still cook using open fires or inefficient stoves fueled by wood and other polluting fuels. The smoke generated by these cooking methods creates dangerous household air pollution.
The World Health Organization estimates that household air pollution contributes to approximately 2.9 million premature deaths each year.
Women and young children are particularly vulnerable because they often spend the most time close to the open fire while cooking.
Pneumonia remains the world's leading infectious cause of death among children. Estimates vary by year and source, but approximately 600,000–725,000 children under age five die from pneumonia each year. Household air pollution is a major risk factor: the World Health Organization estimates that it is responsible for approximately 44% of pneumonia deaths among children under five.
Behind every statistic is a child, a mother and a family—and a problem for which practical solutions already exist.
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A Remarkably Simple Solution
The Cookstove Project has already helped build nearly 50,000 clean cookstoves, transforming the way thousands of families cook their daily meals with an amazing 95% sustained adoption after 5 years.
The clean cookstoves not only improve the health of mothers and children, they decrease climate change by reducing black carbon and deforestation and empower women and girls with stoves that cook more efficiently and save hours collecting firewood every week.
One of the remarkable things about the CSP model is its simplicity and sustainability. In Uganda, nothing needs to be manufactured overseas or imported. The cookstoves are constructed using locally available materials— red clay soil, grass and water—mixed together to make an adobe-like clean cookstove for only $10.00 per stove!
Local people are trained as Cookstove Masters, creating skills and employment within the communities themselves. The resulting stoves are durable, using 66% less firewood and dramatically reduce families' exposure to smoke from traditional open-fire cooking.
And the need remains tremendous. In just one district where CSP works, more than 100,000 families are still cooking over open fires and waiting for a clean cookstove.
Sustainability That Can Be Measured
The Cookstove Project doesn't simply build a stove and walk away.
Through its 10-Year Look Back Program, CSP sends teams back into communities to inspect cookstoves that were constructed more than a decade ago. Approximately 13% of those older stoves need to be rebuilt, while the others continue serving their families, with repairs made when necessary.
Think about that: a cookstove constructed primarily from locally sourced earth, grass and water can still be serving a family more than ten years later.
That's sustainability in action!
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Rotary Can Help Multiply the Impact
The new Rotary Cookstove Satellite Club brings together Rotarians who share one common purpose: helping expand the reach and impact of clean cooking through The Cookstove Project.
Nearly 50,000 cookstoves have already been built. But hundreds of thousands of families in the communities CSP serves are still waiting.
With Rotary's worldwide network behind this effort, imagine how many more families we can reach!
The Cookstove Project Website: cookstoveproject.org