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I have more time now after working from the farm to learn how to make soap for sale, I now use the money to pay my children school bills and solve some issues at home.
I now get the time to have deep long and fruitful conversations with my children and husband which greatly improves our relationship and bond
The DelAgua stove delivers significant gender benefits as less time is spent collecting wood and cooking.
95% of household cooking in rural Rwanda is done by women and girls. The daily drudgery of wood collection, tending the fire, food preparation, cooking and cleaning up occupies as much as 8 hours every day. The wood needed for the DelAgua stove is reduced by 71% resulting in 71% less time collecting wood. Household research shows that along with fast cooking times, reduced wood usage is the benefit most appreciated by women.
Traditional fires required large branches which meant girls making long expeditions to forests to find the wood.
This not only took up time but could put them at risk of attack, away from their local community. Traditional cooking methods increase women and girls’ exposure to the risk of gender- based violence (GBV). The number of fuel gathering trips, the distances travelled and the time taken all contribute to the incidence of GBV. The DelAgua stove uses just small twigs and tinder which the girls can gather close to home, so feel safer. And because the stove uses 71% less wood ,the number of trips and the time taken to collect sufficient fuel are both significantly reduced which in turn reduces the risk of GBV.
Stove quality is paramount. A poor quality, mud constructed stove will be cheaper to provide but will not provide the step change in performance and reliability that delivers the benefits that families need to ensure behaviour change and transform health and wellbeing.
The DelAgua stove is designed to work for the women and the reality of their lives. Speed of cooking is cited by women as their favourite benefit. The stove lights easily, boils water rapidly and cooks staples such as beans in half the time. Read more about the DelAgua stove here.
Women adapt easily to using it and behaviour change is immediate. Independent audits show that 2 years after distribution, 90% of stoves remain in daily use.
The stove saves time and frees women from the fire.
The younger girls can spend more time in school and being with their friends. The women have the time to invest in activities other than cooking, for example the opportunity to set up a micro-enterprise or helping cultivate their land and improving the crop yields. They can also socialise and meet with their friends.
Freeing women from the fire and allowing them to engage economically has important long-term benefits for the women and for the countries overall social and economic development.
A study published by Singoma Ronald and Dr Denys Uwimpuhwe from University of Lay Adventists of Kigali stated that 80.2% of respondents in the research reported that this reduction in time spent on fuel collection allowed them to pursue other income-generating activities, which is consistent with studies such as those by Greene and Rhyne (2019).
It reduces the burden on women. Most women will either go to the farm or garden then cook afterwards. The cooking time with this stove is very short compared to our traditional 3-stone.
I sometimes carry it (stove) to my farm, after work I cook there; that helps me to spend more time watching and caring for my crops and prevents the pest from destroying it.
The project is funded by the sale of carbon credits. Help free more women from the fire, provide more life-changing stoves, offset your carbon footprint and buy carbon credits directly from DelAgua.
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