Mukuru Clean Stoves Project
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Background
The Mukuru Clean Stoves Project is a collaboration between Rockflower and Mukuru Clean Stoves. The introduction of clean burning stove technology into a household:
Improves the health everyone living in and around the household;
Reduces environmental degradation by reducing fuel requirements;
Empowers women to reduce household air pollution as well as excessive deforestation caused by household using ineffective, solid fuel cook stoves.
Household air pollution, caused by inefficient stove technology, affects 700 million people in Africa alone, and significantly increases the risk of acute respiratory infection, low birth weight, pregnancy complications, including cesarean delivery, and pneumonia. High levels of air pollution in households is responsible for over 1 million deaths annually in African children under 5 years old.
Expected Outcomes
The Mukuru Cook Stove Project will provide funding to Mukuru Clean Stoves to significantly expand the sale and reach of Mukuru clean-burning cookstove technology through the creation of an innovative "Lease to Own" program.
Mukuru has developed a low-cost clean cook stove that uses 30-60% less fuel compared to other traditional stoves on the market and reduces toxic smoke emissions by 50-90%. The stoves are designed to be much more stable and sheltered than traditional stoves, preventing the risk of burns in children by 40%.
The project would fund:
The production of 200 clean burning stoves.
Setting up the Lease to Own" program.
Training to 200 households in the proper use of clean stove technology.
Mukuru plans to make the Lease to Own program self-sufficient by using the revenue from the sale of the initial 200 stoves under the lease agreements to support further manufacture and sales.
Stoves cost approximately $20 a piece to produce and market before sale at $26 per stove. The project will target 200 households in the Mukuru kwa Njenga slum in eastern Nairobi.
Mukuru Clean Stoves is determined to educate as many mothers as possible about the dangers of household air pollution and encourage them to use safer cooking devices in their homes. They have identified that providing young mothers with clean stoves and training them to be advocates on the importance of clean energy is the most effective way to ensure the message is communicated at scale to large slum areas. This approach is vital in ensuring demonstrable behavioral adjustment in adopting of clean affordable solutions by those at the base of the pyramid.
Project Partner:
Muruku Clean Stoves
News on Mukuru Clean Stoves Project:
