Dangers Of Open Flame Cooking
What is the largest environmental threat to human health worldwide? It is smoke from cooking fires. Household pollution from soot and smoke causes or aggravates lung cancer, stroke, heart disease. COPD, tuberculosis, cataracts and other illnesses.
Effects On Children
For children under 5, contact with smoke significantly increases cases of pneumonia and lower respiratory infections that can lead to death. Sadly, we have seen way too may young children and babies sleeping near open cooking fires so that their mother can keep an eye on them.
Adults too, sleep on beds near open fires and die from smoke inhalation and asphyxiation.
What We Do To Help
These conditions can be completely eliminated. One of our most popular and important projects is the provision of vented eco-stoves that remove these pollutants from the home while also reducing the amount of firewood needed to prepare a meal. Not only do these stoves improve health, they also improve the economic condition of the families using them. With the money saved on firewood, more of the families limited monthly income is available for necessities such as food, education and medicine. The wage earner will lose less time from from work and the income will rise even further.
Chispa Vented Eco Stoves
The Chispa stove was desinged to meet the needs of families in Guatemala. It is a hybrid “rocket stove” that combines the increased efficiency of a “rocket” combustion chamber with a large cooking surface that satisfies the need for family cooking. It produces the heat of a traditional or open fire.
THE ADVANTAGES OF A CHISPA STOVE ARE:
- Up to 60% reduction in the use of firewood
- Reduces deforestation saving the environment
- Increases spendable income for such things as food, medical care and education
- A large cooking surface of 16” X 32”
- Reduces cooking time
- Easy to install – just one piece plus the stove pipe
- Built in side tables for resting pots, utensils, etc.
- A large fire box
- Greatly improves health by venting
- 90% of the smoke and toxic fumes
- Reduces the potential for burns due to the side tables
Eco-Stoves Provided to Date:
Vented Eco-Stoves
Total People Served
Total Children Served
