Bordering the Tsavo East and West national parks lays a small dusty town of Maungu. With a population of at least two thousand inhabitants from different communities unemployment is at a high rate. For most of the population here, charcoal burning serves as their main source of income with charcoal as the dominant fuel used. That was before co2balance came along and donated free cook stoves in which majority if not all members of this community benefited.
One such beneficiary is Patricia Mwikali who is also a social worker in this community. Aged fifty eight, she shares her home with her husband, daughter in-law and grandson. This has been her third year since she benefited from the stove. She says she uses the carbon zero stove at least three times a day and this has brought great improvement to her family’s health and finance. Her daughter in-law doesn’t have to walk for long distances in search of firewood as a few branches of trees pruned and dried from the farm meet the family’s daily fuel consumption needs, thanks to the low fuel consumption CZK stove.
She says that ‘attending my chama meetings has never been easier where I mingle with other women who have the same efficient cook stove in developmental issues like poultry farming. We rear poultry from which we get our daily income from.’ She say that at first getting capital to start her project seemed out of reach but as soon as she got the stove, she started saving the money which she used to spend on paraffin and charcoal; and up till now they own three hundred broiler chicken.
For Patricia, hers is a success story of how co2balance has improved the livelihoods of this community using the carbon zero stove. With the help of the ECLO’s, this particular community has been educated on simple and better ways of how to improve on the environment they live in hence leaving it for future generations in a much better way than they found it.
This is great, I used to work for a company that sold fuel efficient jikos
Great story.