Kitchen

Everyday the school cooks food for the kindergarten students and the primary school students. This is done on an open fire with three bricks around it and a put sitting on the fire. The students have to bring in firewood and they get through a lot. The smoke generated makes the environment unpleasant but this has never been challenged.

The wood comes from the local forests and there is no obvious replanting strategy.

The school however has planted a number of trees with the intention that they will be sued for firewood, but the demand and the quantity planted do not match.

Using a design that we had seem in Dareda, we asked Fundi Thomas to build us a new stove. This stove is made of cement and the head contained within it. The heat passes through the stove and heat up all "rings" . At one end there is a chimney and the smoke is encouraged that way.

This stove uses significantly less wood and so is environmentally friendly and makes a far better working environment.

Job done!

The Town Director was very impressed with this concept and has asked for other schools to learn and copy this so that their environmental footprint is reduced. This is why we are a model school.

We thought it was job done......

But of course our cooker is made out of concreet which is expensive and it is an industrial size and hardly replicable for the community. But the principal is.

So we visited a women's project outside Arusha that makes domestic versions.

The fire surround is made from baked earth and bricks and so are significantly cheaper to build.

These two cookers have reduced the wood consumption of this family by over 80% which is phenominal.

What is particularly ingenious of the right hand cooker is that inside it is a copper tube, that feds into the embers and then feeds into a barrel of water. So the hot fire not only cooks the food, but also boils the water at no extra cost. This water can be used for cooing, washing up, hot drinks or for purifying the water and so improving the health of the family. This is a very cheap version of our school cooker and can be copied by the community and so we will be holding a series of training seminars to show people who to make them. This will reduce their time spent looking for wood, which is normally done by the kids, who can spend more time on their homework! It will also help save the forests.

Job done..... again!