Ethiopia is considered the birthplace of coffee, which is a main thread in the fabric of Ethiopian culture. The coffee ceremony is a key social event, and turned out to be a great time to speak to local women about our stoves. I travelled to Alem Gena with Zertihun Tefera, the Executive Director of SIQQEE, an Ethiopian charity that had helped form the women’s group. We walked into a classroom at SIQQEE’s branch office full of chatter and the sound of coffee beans crackling over the fire, the air redolent with their roasted aroma.

I first listened to the woman focused on stirring the roasting beans as she explained that they are the first of SIQQEE’s many women’s groups and that with seed funding, they are now able to earn a small income by selling grain at their local market.

The group was pleased that I was sharing my first coffee ceremony experience with them and astounded when they learned that scientists in the U.S. had tailor made a stove for Ethiopia. To help address Ethiopia’s high rates of deforestation and diseases caused by inhalation of cooking smoke, our partner, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) developed the Berkeley-Ethiopia Stove. This stove is similar to the stove that we distribute in Darfur but has been adapted for Ethiopian culture and cooking. The new design includes features such as notches that hold a coffee roasting pan in place and metal rods that hold a jebena, the traditional pot used throughout Ethiopia to brew coffee.

Debra visiting with a women’s group from the Ethiopian organization, SIQQEE in the Oromia region of Ethiopia.

As the first round of coffee was poured into small cups and served to everyone sitting in our circle, one woman described to me the day-long journey she takes each week to collect heavy loads of firewood for cooking. With over 90% of the Ethiopian population dependent on firewood and charcoal for cooking and lighting, deforestation has forced these women to travel further and further, taking up their valuable time that could be used for more productive pursuits.

One woman’s loud cough throughout our discussion was a reminder that these women are all too familiar with the harmful effects of cooking. The need for fuel-saving stoves around the world is tremendous. In fact, the need is so great in Ethiopia that the government recently committed to putting nine million clean cookstoves into use throughout the country by 2015. But they need the help of groups like us who have the ability to link the world’s best science with local customs. The innovative technology of the Berkeley-Ethiopia Stove can help lift many Ethiopians out of poverty.

The women expressed their eagerness to learn new job skills as stove sales agents and to serve as role models to young girls. This seemed especially fitting when I learned the name of their group means “growing by working” in the Oromo language.

As my second cup of coffee was filled, I told them more about our work in Darfur. Despite the already significant hardships that these women face, they audibly gasped when they heard about the dangers that await Darfuri women when gathering firewood.

As we sipped our final cup of coffee, the women volunteered to use the stove to prepare meals for their families and suggested that they demonstrate the stove at their local market. Zertihun will report back with the women’s feedback, which will help us to ensure that Ethiopian families are getting the greatest possible value from their stoves.

I left that day feeling over-caffeinated and inspired to hear from these women who are so eager to create their own opportunity that they volunteered to do a market trial. We’re very excited about the chance to help them and with your support, we will. I look forward to reporting on our progress!

For many stove projects around the world, selling stoves to users instead of distributing them for free is seen as a way to ensure that they are valued by users and that they are meeting their needs while maintaining long-term sustainability of their project. With the help of Marketing Consultant Jan Maes, the Darfur Stoves Project is exploring this concept as a means to ensure a high adoption rate of the Berkeley-Darfur Stove.

As part of his market research, Jan conducted focus groups with women to gather their
feedback about the Berkeley-Darfur Stove.

Currently in Sudan, Jan has been speaking with potential stove users, firewood vendors and other pertinent parties in order to research all of the factors that go into a establishing a market for stoves. One of the main barriers to instituting a standard stoves-for-sale model in Darfur is that the majority of our current stove users live in displacement camps and would not be able to afford the full cost of the stove (approximately $20).

Jan is working with our field partners to examine several options ranging from a subsidized program to down payment/installment plans as well as free trial periods to determine the most practical and appealing means for consumers to make a personal investment in a Berkeley-Darfur Stove. “The only way to reach all women who can benefit from Berkeley-Darfur Stove ownership is to facilitate a sustainable market for the stove. And the key to widespread uptake of the stove, especially among the lowest-income market, is to support potential customers in setting up a savings mechanism to turn their improved firewood expenses into daily cash savings. Women can use the initial savings to help pay for the stove and continue to accumulate lump sums of cash for years afterwards.”

With a background in microenterprise development, Jan is exploring opportunities to set up a viable marketing chain involving local women’s development groups, entrepreneurs, and community-based organizations, building sustainable access to the Berkeley-Darfur Stove and creating new income opportunities at the same time.

The next step in this process is a marketing trial. After determining how to best promote the features of the stove are the most appealing to consumers (such as time and money savings), Jan will work with our partners in Sudan to conduct a marketing trial and explore how to make the stove affordable to a large number of low-income buyers.

“If we can demonstrate through a small trial that the Berkeley-Darfur Stove can be sold (even at a subsidized price), we will have overcome the biggest hurdle to establish a sustainable market with the potential to provide access to the stove to many more poor women in Darfur and elsewhere than would ever be possible by donor grants alone.”

What’s in a stove? In Darfur, fuel-efficient stoves benefit the environment and much more.

January 5, 2011

View the full article with photos here.

Written by: Elizabeth Stevens, Oxfam America

With a thud and a spray of flying sand, Hawa Adam Dawelbiat splinters a dry tree branch. A few deft blows of her ax and she has produced a small pile of kindling, which she picks up and displays to a visitor. This is what it takes to cook for her family: one third the wood she used each day before the arrival of her fuel-efficient stove.

Over time, that will mean one third of the dangerous fuel-gathering trips to the countryside, one third the loss of trees, one third the smoke inhaled by Dawelbiat and her young ones, one third the air emissions. And now that she is buying her fuel in the marketplace, she’s spending a third of what she used to and has more money to feed and clothe and educate her children.

High-tech simplicity
Her stove — known as the Berkeley-Darfur Stove – is the brainchild of the Darfur Stoves Project (DSP), a US-based Oxfam partner organization that draws on the work of engineers at the Lawrence-Berkeley National Laboratory in California. DSP worked with women in Darfur to develop a stove suited to their needs that would use less than half the fuel of a traditional three-stone fireplace and significantly less than other stove models that are available locally. The result is a portable 12-sided metal stove – around 12” in every dimension – that is as advanced in its design as it is simple in its construction. And whose frugal output is a match for the scarce resources of the Darfur camps.

A fuel-efficient meal
On a day in December, while her daughter and a friend play on a mat behind her and a neighbor holds her ten-month-old baby, Dawelbiat sits down on a low stool next to her stove and begins to cook her family’s mid-morning meal. The kitchen is a low mud-brick building, shadowy but brightly lit where the sun slips in through the doorway.

She places a pot of water on the stove, adds a few pieces of wood to the firebox, and sets the fire going with a match. When the water boils, she sprinkles ground millet into the pot and stirs it with a long, carved wooden stick until she’s created a thick porridge – known as asida – which she sets aside in a bowl. The next course is mullah, a soup made of onions fried in oil with dried meat, crushed tomato, okra, and spices. And finally, tea. In the space of an hour, Dawelbiat and her fistful of kindling have produced a meal for six.

Building stoves, protection, and incomes
At the compound of Oxfam partner SAG (Sustainable Action Group) in nearby El Fasher, the usual sounds of a Darfur town – the roar of vehicles, the clatter of grain mills, and the bleats and brays of animals — is replaced with the banging of metal on metal. Here in a building sided and thatched with sorghum stalks, eight men from the Al Salaam camp work at tables assembling Berkeley-Darfur stoves. They smile at visitors and get back to work, bending and hammering metal into its designated size and shape. To the list of benefits of the stoves can be added one more: employing survivors of the conflict, who — uprooted from their homes and farms — struggle to find any work at all.

So far, SAG and the workers from the camps have produced and distributed around 9,000 stoves. With enough funds, they’ll create 15,000 stoves in 2011. Some will go to the camps, others to rural areas hard up against the deadly combination of deforestation and armed conflict.

More people should have these stoves
Dawelbiat is shy with strangers, but her praise for the stove is effusive all the same. “The stove is good because it’s efficient and saves fuel and cooks faster. It’s better at keeping the kitchen clean, and there is less smoke. You can easily cook with it and easily move it around. Even a small portion of fuel can make your food.”

“More people should have these stoves,” she concludes.

It is a point that no one argues.

Letter from the Executive Director

Earlier this month, I visited our projects in Darfur. During my three-week trip, I spent countless hours with women who, for the past six months, have cooked each day with the Berkeley-Darfur Stove. These women–Zakia, Atima, Hawa, Mariam, and many others–told me how their stove saves them time and money, and is less smoky than cooking over a three-stone fire. They are able to feed their family more and take some much-needed rest in their daily struggle.

I also spent several days working with our partners, Oxfam America and Sustainable Action Group, to analyze data we collected in our surveys of stove users. We looked at the responses of 100 women in January 2010, right before they received their Berkeley-Darfur Stove, and compared them with responses of the same women six months later. These surveys allow us to understand the collective impact of our stoves. Here are some of the changes we found:

• Women report an average reduction in firewood expenses of 66%
• Half of the women who were collecting firewood are now able to afford the smaller amount they need and have ceased venturing into unsafe areas for wood
• Before receiving the stove, 80% of the women were concerned about their exposure to smoke during cooking. Six months after receiving the Berkeley-Darfur Stove, this number dropped to 28%

These women need our support so they can provide food to their families in a safer, healthier, and less environmentally damaging way.

- Andree Sosler

In December, I had the opportunity to travel to Darfur and meet the most important members of our project – the women who use the stoves to cook food for their families. These women are our raison-d’etre, and the purpose of my trip was to learn from them and make sure we are responding to their needs.

I worked with our partners, Oxfam America, and Sustainable Action Group (SAG) to design a baseline survey investigating the challenges women face obtaining cooking fuel and feeding their families. The survey revealed that the overwhelming majority of women in ZamZam camp purchase firewood by selling a portion of their food rations. However, approximately 20% of women still collect firewood outside the camps — despite the grave risk to their safety. After completing the survey, each participant received a Berkeley-Darfur Stove; after six months we will revisit these families to learn the impact the stove has had on their lives. Because the stove uses less than half the amount of wood as the traditional three-stone fire, we anticipate that treks outside the camps and food rations sold to obtain fuel will be dramatically reduced.

Oxfam, SAG and I also worked together to design a training curriculum to show new stove users tips on using the stoves safely and efficiently.  We trained 60 women from ZamZam camp, who are now “stove trainers” responsible for instructing new stove users in their community.  The training includes an interactive cooking demonstration and discussion about the stove’s benefits.

A highlight of the trip was when the women in ZamZam gave a new Arabic name to the stove.  They chose the name Kanun Khamsa Dagaig, or “5-Minute Stove”- a reflection of how much they value the stove’s ability to reduce cooking time.

The women were awed when I told them that the stove was especially designed for them and that our scientists in Berkeley mimic their way of cooking — making dishes similar to their traditional aseeda and mullaah — in order to predict the benefits the stove will have in their lives.  They expressed their heartfelt thanks to DSP, our collaborators, and our generous supporters.  We hope you will continue to follow our progress and support our work serving the women of Darfur.