I am Founder Trustee of AVIF, an online charity, devoted to sustainable development, online & onsite volunteering and endeavouring to achieve at least some of the Millennium Development Goals within rural Kenya. Solar Cooking was introduced to me by Solar Cookers International.

Simple cookers

An excerpt from one of the vast resources on their Archives wiki reads "In 2003, SCI began introducing and creating a market for solar cookers in Nyakach, selected from 150 applicants from all over Kenya. Near the equator and close to Lake Victoria, there is abundant and intense sunshine for over six months of the year. People are poor, there are few employment opportunities, agricultural and fishing resource bases are increasingly degraded, and wood and charcoal have become scarce and very expensive... Eating habits in this area are ideal for solar cooking – most foods are boiled and meals are traditionally eaten at mid-day and in the early evening. A favourite local staple, omena (minnows), is considered most tasty when solar cooked. Sixteen trainees were selected in May 2003 from 16 women’s groups, with fifteen attending the training workshop in June 2003. Most remained and new ones added, with a total of twenty-three formally becoming solar cooker vendors in July 2005."

The difference made by SCI is due to their intense awareness of the dangers of apathy with new technologies. Practical demonstrations are coupled with information sessions targeting local opinion leaders such as chiefs and other government officers, leaders of women’s groups, health professionals and representatives of development agencies. Local foods and water sources are used in the cooking and pasteurization demonstrations. Kenyan women are trained intensively to become solar cooker representatives and are encouraged to participate in spreading the word.

One can find SCI's "Field Guide-Spreading Solar Cooking" here , recommended to anyone contemplating playing a leadership or facilitating role in a solar cooker project. There is also a basic booklet about making, using and understanding simple, low-cost solar cookers.

Points to note :

• Solar cookers save more than four times their value in fuelwood each year.

• Solar cookers can pasteurize household drinking water and milk.

• The solar cooking process is smokeless, reducing respiratory diseases and eye irritation.

• Solar cooked foods retain vitamins, nutrients and their natural flavors.

• Reducing the need to gather wood saves the environment and ecosystem. Forests = rain, crops, livestock and ultimately wealth.

• Reducing the need to breathe in smoke and tend a fire has health advantages of course but also makes solar cooking easy and safe for people with illnesses, the elderly, disabled and young.

• Solar cooking saves time allowing a person to cook while at work, at the market, or tending crops. Young girls can attend school instead of searching for fuelwood.

• Solar energy is free and abundant in many areas of Kenya, providing a safe, clean, healthy supplement to traditional fuels.

• Women and children can make extra money by using solar cooking for example to bake birthday cakes, virtually impossible on an open fire.

For further information on AVIF's volunteer programs helping with prohects such as Solar Cooking please visit the website.