Half of the world's population cooks every meal over what equates to a campfire, burning more wood than necessary and creating unhealthy conditions in the home.
Together, We Can Change This.
Indoor air pollution has been called "the killer in the kitchen." The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 4.3 million women and children die each year from the effects of this pollution, and millions more are chronically sickened. This toxic pollution is caused by billions of people cooking meals indoors, over open fires.
Cooking with wood over an open fire fills kitchens with smoke; smoke that contains dangerous levels of particulates and carbon monoxide. This heavy exposure has been likened to smoking five packs of cigarettes a day.
Breathing the toxic smoke from open cooking fires can lead to acute respiratory illness, pneumonia, cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Since 1998, we have been working with our partners and local community members to design clean cookstoves that greatly reduce deadly indoor air pollution, deforestation, and high fuel costs. These cookstoves are designed according to specific cooking needs and cultural context, which is why they can look very different from country to country. However, all of these stoves have one important thing in common: they make cooking much safer for women and their families.
Each cookstove decreases a family's need for firewood by 50-70%, as compared to standard open fire cooking, and reduces carbon emissions by at least 1.5 tons per year. When vented to the outside of the home, these improved cookstoves also decrease indoor air pollution. Our clean cookstove program is unique because we build all of our stoves in-country, using locally sourced materials and creating much needed jobs within each program country.
