IN HER bright, traditional dress Nakalembe Robina (62) sits surrounded by 80 other grandmothers outside the small resource centre in the city of Jinja, Uganda, discussing the future of fireless cookers.
“Before this I was at home with nothing,” she says, “and yet I have six orphans to support.”
Robina’s only son died of Aids, leaving her to look after her grandchildren in her tiny 4m x 6m house.
Now, every week, she joins other grandmothers to design and construct fuel-efficient stoves and fireless cookers, helping to economise firewood and creating valuable products to sell within the local community.
The project was set up in September 2010 by Aoife Wilson, a recent engineering graduate from Trinity College Dublin working with the Phoebe Education Fund for Aids Orphans (Pefo), a grassroots organisation committed to sustainable development.
In the same month, US secretary of state Hilary Clinton announced the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, an initiative to improve lives, empower women and combat climate change, with a target of 100 million homes adopting clean and efficient stoves and fuels by 2020.
“Firewood is really a problem,” says Mariam Mulindwa, co-ordinator of the grandmothers. “Many people can miss food because firewood is not available.”
Every day, two to five hours are spent collecting enough wood to prepare one hot main meal. For these grandmothers – subsistence farmers supporting young children and many HIV positive themselves – it is a daily challenge.
The three-stone fire traditionally used in Uganda produces heavy smoke emissions, exposure to which is the fifth-worst health risk factor in poor countries, particularly for women and young children. Indoor pollution leads to almost two million premature deaths annually, twice that of malaria.
Pefo’s sustainable development approach is exceptional in its focus on adapting appropriate technologies to local needs, while simultaneously empowering women through training and capacity building.
Designing and constructing the products themselves, the women fully understand the importance of these new technologies and can teach others within their community.
“I found that a lot of similar projects that had been introduced in the past had failed because people were coming in trying to impose ideas and technologies,” says Wilson.
“Too often NGOs think teaching people how to operate their product is enough to make it sustainable, but how can people improve on the design and adapt where necessary if they don’t understand why it works?”
Mulindwa has worked with Pefo since it started, and is proud that the organisation has “worked from the ground upwards”.
“They don’t decide for us, we know what works best ourselves,” she says. “We try to identify any mistakes because we are learning from them, so eventually we can do these things even when Aoife is not here.”
The grandmothers have perfected two fuel-efficient alternatives: the Six-Brick Rocket Stove and the innovative fireless Mwebonereku Cooker.
Namuse Monica (69) is HIV positive and too weak to join in the construction, but she attends the weekly meetings and is an avid supporter of the new stoves.
“I paid some money and got one for myself,” she says. “The stove has made my life easier, I don’t use so much firewood and it doesn’t make so much smoke. I can sit and make mats while cooking.”
Mwebonereku, which means “see for yourself” in Lugandan, encapsulates the spirit of the project.
“People doubted if it would be possible; now it is working and people are interested,” says Mulindwa. “We are making things we never knew we could because of our age and being women.”
The fireless cooker is a simple but innovative design, requiring only a few twigs of firewood to cook an entire meal. The food is briefly brought to the boil on the fire and then placed inside the insulated basket.
“The grannies themselves suggested they could take it to the level of a small business, once they had the necessary skills,” says Wilson.
The grandmothers have learned specific weaving skills to ensure maximum insulation and durability of the baskets. They use locally sourced materials: reeds collected from swamps in Bukungu and plaited banana leaves sourced from the Pefo matoke plantation for insulation.
“These will need to be dyed in bright colours,” says Momula Annette, one of the weavers, pointing to a batch of baskets.
Aesthetic appeal may seem irrelevant for women living with almost nothing, but it has been crucial in convincing people in the local community to buy the Mwebonereku Cookers. For these women, appearance is dignity.
“People like them so much they want to buy them,” says Annette.
“It is useful because there are those who can’t manage to be near the firewood. You can just put the food in the basket and it will cook.”
The baskets keep food warm for up to eight hours and for this reason have proven particularly popular during Ramadan.
The target is to sell cookers to 360 households in the next six months. The grandmothers’ products will reduce energy costs within the community and contribute to a sustainable local economy, a crucial prerequisite for foreign investment to be successful.
Pefo founder Justine Ojambo believes in breaking the culture of dependency by empowering communities to support themselves. Pefo is pioneering sustainable projects focusing on housing, livelihoods, education and health for caretakers of orphans.
“People have been there, facing challenges, we cannot pretend we are the saviours,” he says.
Pefo programmes officer Simon Mugudde says the renewed sense of vitality among the women is one of the most important outcomes of such projects, often overlooked by other development organisations.
Widowed mother of 10 Muganza Farida (50) is testament to this. “I don’t have to be worried and alone,” she says. “I can come and share with others, get involved with dancing, I’m now so happy.”
“The most important thing is approach,” says Mugudde. “I see communities resisting and shutting off because the approach is not right.”
The Foundation for Sustainable Development works with more than 80 grassroots organisations in Jinja, placing skilled volunteers such as Wilson with relevant organisations to develop sustainable projects within the community.
“We operate within a radius of 70km, so we can closely monitor that what we’re doing is actually going to the people themselves,” says Margaret Nassozi Amanyire, programme director for the foundation in Uganda.
“It’s very efficient, it’s not costly, and it’s long term,” she adds, emphasising that even after the projects are finished, people on the ground will still use the technology because they have the capacity and it is adapted to their needs. “Whether the organisation is still there or has fallen apart, the people still remain.”