School Uncertainty

Here in Uganda August has started with the relaxation of some lockdown measures that saw the country in stand-still for the past 42 days. Public transport is now allowed which is a huge relief for many Ugandans. The bad news is schools are not opening any time soon. During his speech last Friday, the President Joweri Museveni said children between the ages of 12 and 18 should be vaccinated to be able to attend class. With the slow speed at which vaccines are being imported, and with only 1.1 million of the population vaccinated so far, there is little hope children will be back in school any time soon.

Simoshi’s office is located in Kampala, in a quiet neighbourhood where we still have a feeling of a rural environment. It is heartbreaking to see children on the streets, helping in the shops or with household work, and this has been going on for almost two years now. We wanted to share some images of what is happening right now as we still go to the office on a daily basis - for us work is ongoing despite schools’ closure, because we had taken advantage to make the repairs of all institutional improved cook stoves in the school kitchens.

Video Presentation Warwick TeamWork

Early this month we told you about our 6 undergraduate students from Warwick University and Monash University working on their virtual project for the Virtual Internship 2021. After four weeks of intense learning on improved cook stoves, carbon markets and verifiable sustainable development impacts, they had submitted their final video presentation last Friday 23rd of July as part of their assignment obligations.

Each student had an individual topic to work on, and each edited a one minute video on the subject to make sure it is easily communicated to our social media audience. Topics included:

• Climate emergency in Uganda

• All about Simoshi

• Traditional versus improved cook stoves

• Carbon finance and markets

• Sustainable Development Goals

• Offsetting your carbon footprint ethically and responsibly

From top left to right: Virginia Echavarria (Simoshi), Surbhi Misra (Simoshi), Ella Baldwin (student), Lily Jean (student), Sarah Sheehan (student), Yan Chan (student), Pak Chan (student), Katie Randall (Warwick supervisor), Gianpaolo Mascaro (student).

It has been a fantastic experience at Simoshi as we mentored these six amazing individuals based from Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and London. It was incredible to manage the different time zones and have everyone attending the weekly Zoom meetings on time despite the diverse time zones (Uganda and India included!).

We look forward to posting all six individual videos on our Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts, so don’t forget to follow us as we keep you entertained and updated on the latest events from the field in Kampala.

Water Boiling Testing of Improved Cook Stoves

July has been a busy month for testing, as twelve institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) of 30 litres capacity that have been in operation since 2016, have been collected from different schools within Kampala and brought to our offices to perform the Water Boiling Test.

The Water Boiling Test (WBT) is a simplified simulation of the cooking process. It is intended to measure how efficiently a stove uses fuel to heat water in a cooking pot and the quantity of emissions produced while cooking.

The Water Boiling Test was developed to assess stove performance in a controlled manner. It is an approximation of the cooking process and is conducted in controlled conditions by trained technicians.

The WBT test for efficiency can be performed with simple equipment, always ensuring it has been previously calibrated by the Uganda National Bureau of Standards. (If emissions are measured, more complex equipment is required.) Such tests are mandatory to run, annually, under Simoshi’s registered Project Activity “Institutional Improved Cook Stoves for Schools and Institutions in Uganda”, to ensure the disseminated project IICS are still achieving at least 50% of fuel savings when compared to the baseline stoves/3-stone fires locally used. Its primary benefits are:

• Provide initial or laboratory assessments of stove performance in a controlled setting

• Compare the effectiveness of different designs at performing similar tasks

• Evaluate stove changes during development

• Select the most promising products for field trials

• Ensure that manufactured stoves meet intended performance based on designs throughout their lifetime

Warwick TeamWork Virtual Internship

“Critical now more than ever, virtual working is a way for students to together learn valuable communication skills, whilst solving business scenarios. Through the remote nature of this TeamWork programme, the aims are that students develop their team working skills, as well as innovation, critical thinking and project management skills”.

As a Warwick postrgaduate alumni, Simoshi is currently participating on the TeamWork Virtual Internship Programme 2021. TeamWork involves multi-disciplinary teams of students from the University of Warwick working together for four weeks starting end June 2021 - on a project set by Simoshi.

Simoshi is having a team of six students from around the world apply their perspectives, skills, global outlook and academic abilities to our specific business challenge. They are creating narrative and visual content to help communicate why companies and individuals should commit the highest level of environmental integrity when setting their climate goals, while their choice of action should also contribute to sustainable development.

Stay tuned as look forward to sharing the final presentation!

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It Is Back To Total Lock-Down

Once again Uganda goes into a total lockdown for the next 42 days, meaning public transport, private cars, sports and recreation, etc had now been added to the past measures reported on the 8th of June . Here at Simoshi we have to adjust our logistics to make sure we continue using these days of school closure to repair all institutional improved cook stoves.

Fortunately, motorcycles are allowed with only the driver, so Henry, our maintenance officer, can continue making progress with all repairs needed before the reopening of schools.

These are uncertain times worldwide, but especially here in Uganda where new Covid-19 cases had seen an unprecedented rise of 2,800% over the past weeks, and vaccines had run out (under 900,000 doses of Astra Zeneca), for a population of 44 million Ugandans, the future looks grim. Our spirits stay high as always as we continue to push for a more healthier and prosperous energy future.

Schools Close Again

Last Sunday 6th of June President Joweri Museveni addressed the nation as a result of the increasing number of Covid-19 cases registered in the country. In his speech, the President stated 17% of the population currently have Covid, with the cumulative cases now standing at 52,929. Because the number of cases is now much higher with this wave when compared to the previous ones, and the most affected age group are young people between 20 and 39 years of age with the most transmitting rate in between 10 and 19 years of age, certain lockdown measures had to be put back in place.

This included closing down all schools and institutions of higher learning for 42 days, starting from Monday 7th of June. All teachers will have to now get fully vaccinated before returning to teach when schools open again on Monday 19th of July. Inshallah!

We continue to support our schools despite the pandemic and lockdown measures, and take this closing period to do repairs and maintenance of their institutional improved cook stoves. We will keep you updated of all maintenance activities taking place very soon!

June - Month of Reels

This month of June we will be entertaining our Instagram readers with short video clips straight from the field. Every day, our amazing colleague Surbhi will be creating and editing fun stories from the schools that represent the efforts we have been working on for over the past five years.

From kitchens to classrooms, children and cooks, we will be showing you what a typical day in Kampala feels like. Say tuned and don’t forget to follow us @Simoshi.limited as we continue to enrich the already colorful and engaging Instagram account.

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Gold Standard Labeling

Our second issuance of 3,950 carbon credits got the Gold Standard (GS) labeling yesterday, becoming Gold Standard Certified Emission Reductions (GS CERs). The Gold Standard label is one of the most rigorous certification standards available for carbon offset projects – ensuring their efficacy both ecologically and socially ensuring that projects deliver genuine emission reductions and long-term sustainable development through linking to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our Project Activity “Institutional Improved Cook Stoves for Schools and Institutions in Uganda” achieved nine GS verifiable and measurable SDGs, making it one of the few available projects with the highest number of achieved goals.

Initial Survey For a New School

We are constantly getting calls from new schools who are interested in learning more about our Project Activity. We are very lucky because it is all word of mouth, existing schools enjoying the benefits of our institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) and the service we have been providing for over 5 years, are continuously recommending Simoshi.

Yesterday we visited a big secondary school close to Gayaza town, with almost 1,800 secondary children. Unfortunately their kitchen environment is not up to standards. We are hopeful this will be soon a new school joining our activities, and we had managed to asses the current kitchen environment, make recommendations to improve the infrastructure, and had left the Head Teacher with a quotation and payment plan for their 5 IICS of different saucepan capacities.

We were impressed to see the strict measures the school is following with the COVID-19 Standard Operational Procedures and how they are ensuring temperature is continuously checked for every student prior their meal. We are sharing a short video and explanation here below.

Hello May

Another month starts and we look forward to seeing the children from Senior 2 join the classroom, as a result of the measures put in place by the Ministry of Education. Primary 1, 2 and 3 are still at home, and they should be coming back to class on the 7th of June. That is when the whole school classes will be fully attending.

In the meantime, for us here at Simoshi, it meant we are collecting some indicators on a monthly basis, because the population is continuously changing, with these figures having a direct effect on the amount of food prepared and the quantity of firewood burnt to fuel the institutional improved cook stoves.

It has also allowed us to gather great videos from the kitchen and wanted to share some of the testimonies from the ladies responsible for preparing the food. Here below is a short caption from Christine at Glory to Glory Primary School.

Christine at tells her story from Glory to Glory

Easy To Adopt, Attractive and Socially Acceptable

Convenient and reliable, that is how the cooking appliances should perform. In this part of our planet, over 80% of the households and schools are still relying on firewood and charcoal to prepare their daily meals. It is even more discouraging to see traditional 3-stone fires and local inneffiicient stoves being used, when there is an existing supply of locally manufactured energy efficient cook stoves available for purchase, at affordable and realistic prices.

What is stopping people from accessing one of these improved cook stoves, whether for household use (ICS) or institutional use (IICS)

Our successful approach has included an on-going provision of training and information to those involved in the ICS/IICS use, and the provision of free IICS annual maintenance, which has been taking place for the past five years.

Energy efficiency is the “first fuel” - the fuel you do not need to use - and first step towards reducing the costs of mitigating carbon emissions while advancing social and economic development, enhancing energy security and quality of life, and also creating jobs.

Remember to visit the UNFCCC Climate Neutral Now platform to purchase your carbon credits when offsetting your carbon dioxide footprint. In doing so, you are supporting all the activities mentioned above. This project would not be able to exist in the absence of carbon finance.

Nakasero Primary School

Nakasero Primary School is the latest school to join Simoshi’s Project Activity as five new institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) were delivered and installed last Saturday. Nakasero is under the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) administration and management that benefited from obtaining their IICS at no cost thanks to the generous COVID-19 Relief Fund grant supported by ENVED GIZ. This makes a total of seven new schools included under such grant so far, with six more to go to finalize with the utilisation of funds.

The kitchen building is not looking optimal in the pictures we share below because the door had to be widened to let the IICS in, and the walls are badly stained with soot from the use of their old stoves. Nevertheless, as time progresses and more children come back to class, the school Head Teacher has promised to put some efforts in beautifying the building as they slowly collect school fees.

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No Masks, No Lunch!

Yesterday we were monitoring the kitchen at St. James Bbiina Primary School. You might remember we installed their institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) during last year’s lockdown. Today we are pleased to see the school slowly going back to normal daily operations.

We found them during lunch hours, when the traditional posho and beans were being served. The children lined up diligently, and the matron’s voice could be heard loud and clear “no masks, no food”. We are always happy to share the stories from the field as we continue to support the schools in their cooking transition.

Why Such A Price Difference?

What is the price of climate damage? Nobody knows yet….What is the social price of carbon? Measuring the harm that is done to societies now and in the future by a ton of emission of carbon dioxide not released into the atmosphere is still difficult to predict.

Nevertheless, there is a clear accountability when it comes to measuring the environmental, economic and social impact the sale of that carbon credit can have in those communities where Simoshi’s Project Activity is being implemented. In other words, where that reduction of carbon dioxide happened from moving schools from using traditional 3-stone fires to using energy efficient cook stoves for preparing the school daily meals.

It is imperative that carbon credits reflect additional, verified, long-lived reductions of carbon dioxide equivalent with a high degree of certainty. Unfortunately the market has seen very many carbon credits that generated from projects that are (i) not additional (they would not have happened without carbon finance), (ii) generate leakage that affect regional or global market equilibrium, and (iii) overstated benefits that are poorly monitored or not monitored at all.

Offset credits are highly differentiated products in terms of the benefits they provide and the certainty of those benefits. Even with issued certifying labels in place, many carbon credits are still currently being traded with little integrity and transparency. Given the wide range of offset quality today, buyers concerned about quality have no choice but to identify high-quality offsets by themselves.

So what is the solution? Transparency is key and therefore the monitoring of indicators, calculations and benefits should be clearly publicly disclosed by both the project developers and certifying bodies. The same applies to those companies and/or individuals offsetting their carbon footprint. Is it fair to say that company x made an offset of an amount of carbon dioxide having paid cents of a US dollar when the benefits from such reduction where overstated or most probably non-existent? Best practice for corporate disclosure should be adopted including the required disclosure of the specific projects from which carbon offsets are purchased.

As we thrive in a wold that is currently coming to terms with the devastating future effects of climate change, help us by raising awareness of why governments, donors, the private sector and the public in general need to come to terms that putting a social price on carbon is now more important than ever.

Five New Schools Added

As part of the Covid-19 Relief fund - a generous donation from Endev and GIZ - five more Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) primary schools have been now added to Simoshi’s Project Activity “Institutional Improved Cook Stoves for Schools and Institutions in Uganda”. All five schools are now enjoying cooking their daily student and staff meals with the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) they had received completely for free as they slowly recover from the past full year school closure.

The number of schools so far that have enjoyed from such grant are Katwe Primary School, Kyambogo Primary School, St. Jude Primary School, Mackay Memorial Primary School, Muslim Girls Primary School, previously joined by Munyonyo Primary School that was already included last month, totaling six school that are successfully now reducing their firewood consumption by at least half.

The list is not stopping here, we are only half way through, as we are busy with the manufacturer Ugastove supervising the fabrication of more IICS for a further seven KCCA schools that will be receiving their donation during the months of April and May.

Celebrating Women

Today, and everyday, we celebrate women as key players in their role in clean energy concerns as they raise important issues in the health and economic daily impact, while directly affect the environmental and global climate change problems faced today.

Clean cooking results in tangible effects for women and girls. They play a crucial leadership role in the adoption and use of clean cooking solutions. With improved health and less time spent when collecting fuel, they can pursue income-generating or educational opportunities, contributing to poverty alleviation, between many of the sustainable development impacts an energy efficient cooking stove can have in their everyday lives.

We dedicate this post to all those women responsible for preparing the daily school meals and ensuring the food is ready on time, despite the distressing conditions they face as a result of traditional cooking practices that continuously threaten their health and safety.

Second Carbon Credit Issuance

Another fantastic milestone has been achieved as we issued our second batch of 3,950 certified emission reductions (CERs) generated from 62 participating schools under the Clean Development Mechanism and Gold Standard registered Project Activity “Institutional Improved Cook Stoves for Schools and Institutions in Uganda”.

This issuance was 50% smaller than our first issuance as a result of a shorter monitoring period that had to be closed in advance due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, it proves this successful model is able to continue to support schools as they move away from traditional cooking practices, thanks to the financial support provided by all those individuals and companies that responsibly offset their carbon footprint.

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Primary Schools Are The Beneficiaries

As previously reported last month, Simoshi has been the grant recipient of the EnDev Covid19 Relief Fund. This means 12 Kampala Capital City Authority primary schools will be moving away from their traditional cooking practices as they receive their new institutional improved cook stoves (IICS).

We have been busy over the weekend making the delivery, IICS installation and training of the school kitchen staff at Munyonyo Church of Uganda Primary School. We wanted to share the exciting news and pictures, as Suzan was busy saying good bye to her 3-stone fires, learning and getting ready for her new kitchen!

We Welcome Surbhi To Our Team

Great news happening in tandem, as Uganda’s government has now re-established connection to almost all social media channels. Timing could not be any better, as we welcome Surbhi Misra to our team, a multi media and mass communicator, and current post-graduate student for a diploma program in English Journalism at one of India’s premier communications institutes, the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC).

Through the Global Warming Mitigations Sphere Program - a global network of people and projects dedicated to finding climate solutions connecting individuals with sponsors, students with internships, and problems with solutions - we have been able to connect to Surbhi who will be leading Simoshi’s Marketing and Communications department until the 16th of April.

A mental health advocate and a proud feminist, Surbhi thrives on the curiosity to learn something new every day. As we strive to raise awareness on climate change and the sustainable development impact behind our institutional improved cook stoves project in Uganda, we will be working together with Surbhi to educate our audience on why it is important to offset your carbon footprint and what to look for when making the carbon credit choice, through our Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram accounts. Stay tuned!

Social Media Still Blocked

Since 12 January, all social media platforms and messaging applications have been blocked as per a directive from the Government of Uganda, following the unrest prior the presidential elections. Therefore we have not been able to write any new posts or upload pictures in any of our accounts with LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. We miss reading our followers comments, and we are eager to let our readers know about the progress made since the new year started.

We are hopeful February will see us back to normal in many ways. Candidate classes are now back in school (that includes Primary 7, Senior 4 and Senior 6). The rumor says the remaining classes will follow on 23 February.

We are well, alive and kicking!

Stay tuned as we will continue using our social media channels to keep you updated on the latest news.