How to Cook Smoke Free
“Cooking can kill. Indoor pollution from cooking on smoky stoves is the fourth biggest health risk in the developing world. Nearly half the people in the world use polluting, inefficient stoves to cook their food each day and 1.9 million people die worldwide each year from exposure to indoor smoke from their cooking stoves. In India, many households still cook indoors on open wood fires releasing harmful smoke, which is damaging to health for all the family.”
In response to this global issue the United Nations Foundation is leading an initiative called ‘The Global Alliance for clean cookstoves’. The challenge is obvious however the solution is slightly more illusive. Putting into action a plan to implement a cook stove that is healthy, suits the specifics of the communities need and is affordable is a complex procedure and finding the right prototype that fits the purpose could take some time.”
TCW is taking a practical approach. We have been working with our Indian partners for years to create a good relationship with communities in Tamil Nadu who are suffering ill health from using indoor open fires. Our partners in India are a local NGO called SCAD and they work with over 500 villages reaching nearly half a million people. Therefore we are in a well-placed position to find out what the specific cooking needs of the women in some of these villages are. One of our team is heading out to India next week to start testing out a few different kinds of cooking methods with groups of women to see what works for them.”