Our superstar Angella was at Centenary Bank head office today, training over 30 new loan officers that will be promoting institutional improved cook stoves across the country. Angella, together with other bank partners dealing in solar products, spent the day talking to a group of enthusiastic Ugandans about the benefits accrued from the use of improved cook stoves. This will be a great opportunity for Simoshi to further expand the energy NIL program with the bank.
We want to thank Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and the Director of Education Ms. Juliet Namuddu, for allowing us to make a presentation about clean cooking during their end of term meeting with Head Teachers and school directors of secondary schools, yesterday afternoon at Old School Kampala S.S.S.
Today the same event will take place with primary schools at Kitante Primary School. This is a fantastic opportunity to introduce the use of institutional improved cook stoves and while making a swift transition to cleaner, healthier and safer environment. Together with Rehema Nakyazzee from Ugastove and Abdul Kyanika from Centenary Bank, we discussed throughout the afternoon with many attendants interested in learning more about this effective cooking approach.
During the past 10 months, UNDP has been supporting the development of the "Green School NAMA" to address the high consumption of firewood in schools in Uganda and its resultant effects on the national forest reserves and the green house gas (GHG) emissions. The process of securing funding from the Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA) Facility has so far passed the first assessment stage and has got the approval of the full size proposal valued at USD 15 million for the next five years. Such fund is intended to reduce GHG emissions through the introduction of institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) in 15,750 schools in Uganda.
Back in January 2017 we wrote about the visit Simoshi received of the NAMA auditors as the "Green School NAMA" was being validated.
Last week CIRCODU held a "Stove Manufacturer and Tester Training" as a result of the above, to prepare the sector on the Green School NAMA call for Expression of Interest, as different organisations prepare for their submissions.
We are very exited to introduce Green Gloria to Simoshi's current marketing activities. Green Gloria is a six year old vigilante with super powers on a mission to protect the environment. Her alter ego is Gloria, a little ordinary school-going nerd who is close to invisible to her classmates. No one suspects her double life. Along the way, she is confronted by many nemeses; entities, some hell bent on achieving personal ambitions even at the expense of the environment; others, downright psychopaths who derive their thrill from instigating chaos.
Artist Ben and his creation Green Gloria
Green Gloria is the creation of Ugandan cartoonist and illustrator, Benjamin Buhamizo. The comic was awarded by the Embassy of Sweden in Kampala during their "Facing the Climate" competition in 2017, and has run in the New Vision's Toto magazine every Wednesday since then. We have launched our new marketing activity for those schools involved in the promotion and sale of the dual fuel household improved cook stove (ICS). With the purchase of the ICS, parents can now receive a free t-shirt with the Green Gloria superhero on it.
A Student Champion proudly wearing his t-shirt at Golden Learning Centre in Mityana
Simoshi together with Ugastove is participating this year on the Source of the Nile Jinja Agricultural Show organised by the Uganda National Farmers Federation, which started last Friday and will be running until Sunday 22 of July.
The theme of this years' show is "Fostering Agricultural Value Chains Innovations for Farmer Led Food Security, Household Income and Job Creation". We would like to share some images from the even and our stall, all thanks to UNCDF's contribution which had made such stall exhibition possible.
We attended the Climate Change Dialogue this month, hosted by the Ministry of Water and Environment and the Embassy of Sweden at the Protea Hotel in Kampala.
Fruitful discussions were held as different organisations presented their tangible outputs and proposals as we aim to reduce the impact on the environment and work towards combating climate change in their different capacities.
Efforts are on-going as we push to convince schools to move away from unhealthy and unsuitable kitchen environments. We wanted to share the pictures of the school visited yesterday, a privately owned school with 800 primary children. The stoves used are in a deplorable condition, while the school is spending the crazy amount of UGX 1,200,000 on firewood per term for their cooking activities. Despite all, children are happy and eat their daily posho and beans.
Angella Mbabazi has joined our team to help promote and sell improved cook stoves at both schools and households. Her degree in Agricultural Rural Innovation and past experience in community training in rural areas promoting sustainable agricultural practices and mobile phone applications, will be very useful to us as we would want to further invest in promoting urban farming activities within schools. We look forward to working with her, learning with her!
Schools have now closed and children are enjoying their well deserved holidays. Classes will resume at the end of this month to commence Term II.
At Simoshi we have successfully achieved the sale of the first 500 dual fuel improved cook stoves (ICS) within the schools participating under Simoshi's Project Activity.
During this holiday period, our staff is designing new marketing activities to implement with School Agents and Student Champions within the classrooms, to further engage parents to move away from their traditional cooking practices.
As we learned many lessons during Term I on our marketing and promotion of ICS, we have got new ideas to add onto the existing activities to reach the next target of 1,000 ICS to be sold.
Today it has been a very special day as we participated in the International Children's Climate Change Conference organised by Little hands Go Green at Ntinda School for the Deaf.
Simoshi had the honor to answer to some of the super smart questions posed by many of the children attending from different schools while sharing the stage with Honorable Minister of Environment Ms. Maria Goretti Kituku.
We also had the opportunity to promote the Ugastove Dual Fuel household improved cook stove, with a stall that caught the attention of visitors as we boiled tea and offered yummy waffles made that same morning!
It is such a pleasure to see schools grasping positively all concepts related to a clean kitchen environment and firewood savings. As part of our monthly training provided to all kitchen staff and school management, we teach them how to best utilise the firewood purchased in the institutional improved cook stoves.
I was not aware that for firewood to properly dry its water content, it needs a full year! As a result of this fantastic video from FAO on the efficeint use of firewood, we developed our "Firewood Management Techniques". The pictures below from St. Paul Buloba Primary School and KCCA Kitebi Primary School speak for themselves.
Today we had the pleasure to attend to one of the many climate change initiatives KCCA fosters and supports, empowering children to become conscious about their surrounding environment, at Kitante amphitheater.
It was such a joy to see the children proudly present their environmentally friendly projects, from fuel briquettes made out of waste, to biogas digesters, toys made out of plastic bags, herbal medicine, jewellery, and much more.
Nakivubo Blue Primary School won the competition, and the prize included 4 new institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) for their kitchen. We are so excited to be adding a new KCCA school under our carbon financing Project Activity! This means their new IICS will be receiving free annual maintenance for the next 5 years, ensuring the firewood savings are kept to a maximum. I will be at the school tomorrow measuring their saucepans, and will be posting again as the school makes the transition in their cooking practices and habits.
Last week we collected 500 Dual Fuel improved cook stoves at Ugastove's factory in Makindye. As part of the United Nations Capital Development Fund programme, we have now officially started to promote and disseminate the energy efficiency cooking technology in schools participating under Simoshi's Clean Development Mechanism and Gold Standard Project Activity. We will be extending the knowledge of what the schools have already been using for the past years, to the homes of those same children attending school.
We made the first storage unit for 25 dual fuel stoves with the welder located right beside our office, and we loved the first sample. On Sunday, the storage unit was delivered at Gangu Muslim primary school as they were having their first parent visitation day of the school year. We will be disseminating a further 3 more storage units this week and we look forward to sharing more stories about our marketing approach, tools and outcome.
Simoshi has formalised its partnership with Centenary Bank to further extend the number of schools included under its registered Clean Development Mechanism and Gold Standard Project Activity "Institutional Improved Cook Stoves for Schools and Institutions in Uganda".
Simoshi will target 70 new schools during 2018 that will be able to change their cooking practices by accessing Energy4Impact's loan scheme (HIL) managed by Centenary Bank. We share below some images of our recent visit to a school in Kampala together with Paul Byamugisha, Centenary Bank's credit supervisor.
It has been a quiet January 2018 in this space and we apologise for the silence! But is was a busy month for all of our team as we relocated offices within Kampala. Bigger space, not only for the office but also including a building with warehouse and storage as we prepare ourselves to buy new machinery for the maintenance of the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS), while we launch the sales activities of the household improved cook stoves (ICS) funded by UNCDF.
Chaos all over the place, painting, reconnecting power, water pipes, gardening.....and files mixed up in boxes. But we will be looking pretty and clean very soon! We look forward to this new year and telling more successful stories from the field.
Last week we had the opportunity to meet with all the people involved in UNCDF's Renewable Energy Challenge. Six organisations - Simoshi, WANA Energy, Green heat, and Josa between others - were given the opportunity to briefly present their winning proposals at Cafe Latte restaurant. It was also a great opportunity for the Investment Committee to finally meet the individuals who will be implementing all the fantastic ideas to make clean cooking affordable and accessible in Uganda.
The meeting was honored with the presence of the Swedish Ambassador who discussed the Paris Agreement goals and proudly explained how the supported projects align with these global ambitions and climate change.
What a fantastic way of wrapping up 2017, with the awarding of $100,000 from the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) for Simoshi's project "Improving household clean cooking through school consolidated networks". Under the Clean Cooking Window's Renewable Energy Challenge Fund (RECF), UNDCF will be co-investing in Simoshi's project and efforts as it aims to close the communication gap on household clean cooking. For the next 18 months, we will be promoting the existing energy efficient cooking technology used in schools to further disseminate that same knowledge to the students' households, building on the existing relationship of trust. We look forward to updating you on all the progress made as we get the project kick-off this month.
That time of the year has come when schools finalise Term III and go off for their well deserved 2-month holiday. Which means school kitchens are closed, an ideal time for us to perform the free annual maintenance on all institutional improved cook stoves (ICCS).
Throughout the month of November, our team has visited all the schools and made a quality assessment on the condition of all operating IICS. This has helped us in organisisng maintenance activities taking place during December and January. Some IICS can be maintained on site at each kitchen, others in need of more serious repairs are collected and taken to the factory for their annual service.
We have got schools already operating their IICS for the third consecutive year. And they are performing just like the first day, making the same firewood savings throughout all of this time. This has been achieved because not only because the IICS have received annual maintenance but also because the kitchen staff has been continuously trained and assessed on how to best operate the stoves.
Last week we had the pleasure to attend ACTADE's Private Sector Forum - Energy for Green Growth" with the aim of sharing knowledge and lessons learned on scaling up off-grid and energy efficient solutions. This was a great opportunity to meet new players in the sector and continue to close the communication gap as more organisations are quickly joining the fight on climate change.
Elke de Taeye, from Belgium, is on her 3rd year of her bachelor degree in social work. She is currently doing an internship with the NGO Humasol, with a focus on implementing environmental education in schools, and raising awareness on waste management.
Elke has started a one month project with Namungoona Kigobe, a KCCA supported school, that is already using the institutional improved cook stoves in their kitchen. We have welcomed her knowledge sharing and look forward to the school teachers views as the project is finalised.
