It is with great pleasure and immense joy that Rockflower celebrates the nomination of Mukuru Clean Stoves as a 2022 Earthshot Prize Finalist.
Featured in the category of Clean Our Air, The Earthshot Prize will be awarded “to the most outstanding efforts to meet this challenge. To the innovators who create job opportunities in green transport and clean energy; to the businesses who remove more pollution from the air than they put into it; and to the communities who let us heat our homes, travel to work and feed our families without polluting the air that we breathe.”
Charlot Magayi has been an integral part of the Rockflower family for some time. In 2017, Rockflower partnered with Mukuru to provide early stage investment for a proof of concept to build 200 stoves. Since then we have watched in awe as Charlot has expanded her vision and her reach to achieve her goals. We were fortunate to have Charlot join the Rockflower Board of Directors in February 2021 to bring her lived experience and deep wisdom to the work of Rockflower.
In July of this year we held a series of Partner Workshops on the Rockflower Five Key Framework. In the session on the key of Economic Empowerment, Charlot joined Haja, Lucy, Roseline and Constance, partners from Liberia, Tanzania, Cameroon and Zimbabwe who shared their experiences on the many challenges they had experienced raising funds for their social enterprises and community based organizations. For everyone it took enormous resilience and faith to keep going before receiving that first piece of funding. Charlot summed it up best:
“The problem with the world is imagining that if we are going to give women the chance we first have to set them up for success, but they have already set themselves up for success and all you have to do is trust them and get out of their way” - Charlot Magayi, Rockflower Partner Workshop - July 2022.
We couldn't agree more! Thank you for your guts and and fortitude Charlot - we couldn't be more grateful that we were able to support you in the early stages and then “get out of the way” and watch you as you manifested your vision.