Fire is a determining factor around which societies organize themselves. Cooking food contributes to improving living standards and ensuring people’s health.
Currently, many people do not have an appropriate space to prepare their food properly. This exposes them to lung diseases from being in contact with smoke. Burning solid fuels produces harmful gases, which causes various respiratory and heart conditions.
This situation was identified by Agreca and the Rotary Club Guatemala in the Los Sauces community, located within the municipality of Palín, department of Escuintla and is located 40 kilometers from Guatemala City. Agreca and Rotary Club Guatemala are implementing a solution that helps fight this problem through energy efficient wood stoves, which reduces firewood consumption, greenhouse gas emission control, and air pollution inside homes. As this moves forward, it transforms lives for families, dignifying human beings and focusing on health as a key element for development.
In December 2022, both institutions coordinated the project’s execution with the community’s COCODE. Families who are benefited from the project, collaborated by transporting materials that the bricklayer would use to build the stoves. Twenty-seven energy efficient wood stoves called “Fogones” were built, which benefit more than 200 people in the Los Sauces community.
This effort dignified families and contributed to improving the health, thanks to reducing the amount of smoke within their homes.
Energy efficient wood stoves or Fogones can be designed and built in many ways, depending on local needs and conditions.
In their most basic form, these include a chamber which reduces heat loss from the fire and protects it from the wind. Evidence shows that this technology provides a positive impact on a number of social and environmental indicators.
Improves health conditions for families, reduces emissions the moment families begin to used them. After switching to an improved cook stove, families reduce the amount of time they need to collect firewood and prepare their food, among other benefits.
