Facts at a glance:
Project: Providing high efficiency stoves to 3 communities in Guatemala
Communities: San Alfonso, La Florida and Pop Atz'Iaq, Guatemala
Number of Beneficiaries: over 100 families

Background

When you think of a kitchen, you might envision a warm inviting space where many a family meal have been prepared.  For over two thirds of all humanity however, the wafting smells of comfort food are accompanied by something far less wholesome: smoke. Smoke from burning wood or dung or crop waste on inefficient stoves or open fires.

2.4 billion people rely on biomass fuels such as these for cooking and heating. Every 20 seconds, however, someone dies from a severe respiratory disease, mainly pneumonia, chronic respiratory disease and lung cancer, linked to smoke from burning these fuels indoors. Overall indoor air pollution is responsible for over 1.6 million deaths worldwide each year.  Women and children are disproportionately affected as they spend the most time at the family hearth.

Where we work in Guatemala, rural families expend a lot of either time or money obtaining firewood for heating and cooking. Aside from a drain on family's resources, this reliance on wood contributes heavily to deforestation and erosion.

The solution is relatively simple. People need cleaner burning fuels and/or higher efficiency stoves equipped with chimneys that vent smoke out of the home. AIDG Guatemala is currently focusing on the latter.

Product Development: Estufas Mejoradas (Improved Stoves)

Over the last 12 months, AIDG has been working extensively with XelaTeco and rural communities in Guatemala to create affordable wood-burning cook stoves. Our objective has been to create low-cost products that use fewer resources and have a lower impact on the environment. We have three models: the Mynor, Elena and Rocket Box Stove.

Upcoming Projects

San Alfonso:Rocket Box Stove

The San Alfonso community inspired our development of the Rocket Box Stove. The people in the community fled to Mexico during the Civil War that ended in 1996. They have now returned to Guatemala to try to recreate their lives there. San Alfonso is very poor and relies on the intermittent labour needs of nearby coffee farms or fincas for income. Community members own very little land for growing food and collecting wood.

AIDG will be working closely with the Women's Cooperative in this community to do market research for XelaTeco products. Using participatory rural appraisal techniques to fully understand the needs and requirements of the people, we are currently working on a project to contract XelaTeco to supply Rocket Box Stoves for the community. 

 La Florida: Rocket Combustion Chamber Stove

La Florida is a worker-owned cooperative of about 47 families. It is a poor community that is still working to pay back a loan used to purchase their farmland.  They are very interested in the use of sustainable technologies, particularly in association with an eco-tourism program that they are establishing.

The community of La Florida will be working with AIDG to install a demonstration Elena Stove in their community building. This project will allow community members to try out the more efficient cook stove as well as showcase the design's economic, environmental and health advantages. It will also provide XelaTeco with added training in project management and installations.

Pop Atz'Iaq: Mynor Stove

AIDG and XelaTeco are working with Pop Atz'Iaq, a grassroots Guatemalan NGO to get appropriate technologies to more women in rural communities. As a starting point, AIDG will contract XelaTeco to install a Mynor Stove into their communal building, where meals are cooked for groups of women traveling in from communities around the region. There, women will be able to test out cooking on the Mynor Stove.