Thank You HerzLack

Over the weekend we have installed 3 new institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) of different capacities at Namungoona Orthodox Primary School. This was possible thanks to the donation received from Herzlack, a vegan cosmetics manufacturing company based in Germany. For the past two years, they have been supporting Simoshi and government aided schools, to make sure these can move away from traditional cooking practices.

Namungoona Orthodox is a Kampala Capital City Authority aided school, with a population of 450 primary day scholars, and have spent 3 trucks of firewood during the last school term. With the new IICS installed, the school will be able to save over 500 USD of annual firewood purchases.

July Starts

A new month gets going in Kampala, and we are always moving around the city to not only monitor the kitchens of those schools included under our Project Activity registered with the Gold Standard.

We are constantly checking on schools outside our project, to learn from their cooking practices and behaviors, even when they are still using traditional methods.

New stove manufacturers come into the sector with different technologies and proposals, and understanding the user preferences is key to improving what we do at Simoshi. For example, we have seen in the past stoves powered with solar panels, and it is so unfortunate to see them broken and no longer in use, as a result of lack of maintenance. The main problem reported by the school is either broken panels, or expired batteries. Such issues could be easily resolved, if customer support was provided.

That is why, no matter which cooking technology is introduced, it is crucial to provide a 10-year warranty and maintenance service, to ensure schools do not resort back to traditional 3-stone fires ever again.

Measuring Happiness

I wish we could find a way of sharing the happiness from the cooks when they move away from using traditional 3-stone fires to using the energy efficient cook stoves to prepare the children’s daily school meals. I feel the pictures or videos are really not enough to represent the gratitude and appreciation they have for their new kitchens.

Every day we collect several indicators for all 9 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) this project activity achieves. Nevertheless, if only we had the opportunity to measure a person’s happiness :) that would be another indicator making us extremely proud.

Death By Lack of Maintenance

It is exasperating to visit schools that made an amazing financial effort to procure improved cook stoves, and end up going back to cooking with the traditional 3-stone fires after 3 years. Cooking at schools happens 9 months of the year, and the stoves are under constant fire, one of the most powerful and destructive forces in nature. Eventually, the stoves will be destroyed if repairs are not scheduled continuously.

We had to share the pictures that speak by themselves, with the cook resourcing to preparing all meals with 3 stones instead of utilizing the white tiled stove, which used to be, sometime in the past an improved cook stove, but is today just a pile of rubble, a hole with tiles shamelessly surrounding it.

The Awe Should Stop

I never stop to get surprised when I see the way schools are still cooking their daily meals. Yesterday I visited a school in Wakiso with 2,500 boarding secondary children, that is willing to move away from their traditional stoves.

I had to share the shocking pictures of the amount of firewood used. The pictures below show a saucepan of 800 litres capacity, boiling water for tea. That saucepan alone uses 4 trunks of trees to make that happen, and this is prepared every day, no exceptions. If that amount of firewood is needed to make tea alone, you can imagine the quantities wasted to prepare food. It is devastating.

A simple intervention of helping schools move away to using institutional improved coo stoves (IICS) can achieve 2 trees being saved every day for making that same tea. There are 22,000 schools in Uganda cooking like this. With children moving around the kitchens, indirectly inhaling all the smoke and pollutants from the inefficient firewood burning….

World Environment Day Celebrations

A big thank you as we have got another donation, this time coming from Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) who donated 3 institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) to Kawempe Muslim Primary School.

To celebrate the World Environment Day, our colleagues from GIZ in Uganda visited the primary school to officially hand over the donation to the school Head Teacher Mr. Zaid and the Deputy Ms. Hadijja.

Our Founder Ms. Virginia was also present to share her words of gratitude, and announce the school will join the Project Activity registered with the Gold Standard for its carbon financing certification, allowing the school to enjoy free IICS annual maintenance for the next decade.

The school is now moving away from using traditional 3-stone fires to energy efficient cook stoves, and will achieve firewood savings of 1,000,000 Ugandan Shillings per school term, allowing them to use that money to buy more food that is desperately needed to increase the portion sizes.

Watch the video here below to hear Ms. Hadijja’s story on the children’s learning journey and the meals they provide at the school.

From The Classroom

A big and warm thank you to our supporter Herzlack who has donated 2 institutional improved cook stoves to Katwe Martyrs, a government aided primary school of 450 day scholars.

This video was filmed last Saturday as children from P7 class were busy revising. Herzlack is a company based in Germany that manufactures vegan nail polish, and we were chatting with the kids about the donor’s background. For the past two years, Herzlack has been an amazing sponsor of several schools, helping them move away from traditional 3-stone fires for all their cooking needs.

Term II Kicks Off

Last Monday children went back to school to get the second school term started. Which means we are back with our Project Officers training and supporting the cooks to make sure good care is taken of the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS), while a clean kitchen environment is achieved.

The month of may was a busy one with maintenance activities, and 48 schools had their IICS and chimney pipes repaired: corroded top rings welded, chimney pipes and hats replaced, combustion chambers plastered.

These activities are provided for free as schools participate for a 10-year period under Simoshi’s carbon registered Project Activity GS4364. It is through the income generated from the sale of the carbon credits that schools not only move away from using traditional 3-stone fires for cooking, but can also enjoy of 50% firewood savings for a whole decade.

New Schools Join

Schools have been on holidays during the month of May, as they await to kick-start Term II on Monday 27 May. This is the best time to get new institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) delivered and installed as kitchens are not operating.

Six new schools have joined our Project Activity “Institutional Improved Cook Stoves for Schools and Institutions in Uganda” registered with the Gold Standard during this month.

We share pictures from the installation done at Mbogo High School in Kawempe. This is a boarding private secondary school of 1,000 girls attending. They have 2 kitchens on site, and 10 IICS of different saucepan capacities were installed.

We now enter into a collaborative effort as Simoshi will be supporting the school for the next 10 years, ensuring the new IICS continue saving at least 50% of firewood, by repairing the stoves for free through the whole period, for as many times as needed. This is paired with continuous training of their kitchen staff, to achieve the highest clean kitchen environment standards.

Winds Of Change For The Cooking Sector

Last Tuesday our Founder and Managing Director Virginia Echavarria attended the “Clean Coking Summit in Africa”, organised by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris. It was a fantastic day to find so many committed individuals pushing to making a positive change towards the cooking situation of the African continent. Here below we share some images from the event, Virginia with Honorable Ruth Nankabirwa Ssentamu (Uganda’s Minister of Energy and Mineral Development), and Dr. Faith Birol (Director General of the IEA).

During the Summit, USD 2.2 billion worth of financing and investments were publicly announced from government and private sector sources. “Nine African governments have publicly committed to making access to clean cooking a national priority and are taking necessary steps to implement proven policy measures in their countries to usher greater progress. More than 130 delegations endorsed “The Clean Cooking Declaration”, including 28 governments, as well as many international organisations, and civil society, and us, Simoshi.

“The declaration is a clear demonstration of our shared commitment and resolve to collective action, and progressing this important agenda through various fora until this issue is finally solved”.

SNV Support Continues

The Dutch NGO SNV is supporting schools in Wakiso and Kampala districts with 40% and 30% of the stove costs respectively since November last year. Such support will continue until August 2024, so we are pushing to get as many schools as possible to enjoy from such benefit.

Nevertheless, it is still difficult for schools to face the remaining 60% and 70% stove costs. An average school with 800 students will need 3 institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) to cater for all the daily meals for children and staff. That balance translates to USD 650.00. With all the urgent and pressing needs the schools face, that amount of money can become impossible.

At Simoshi we are always trying to support the schools with the provision of loans free of interest, and free of collateral, allowing schools to pay back in installments throughout the school year. This financial support is possible thanks to the revenues accrued from the sale of the carbon credits, as we are always allocating a lump sum as a revolving fund to make sure at least 15 new schools are supported every year.

Clean Firewood Combustion

When firewood is burned in good conditions for a fire, it produces very little smoke or unhealthy particulate matter. Burning dry firewood makes all the difference: it burns hotter and cleaner and is also 30 percent more efficient than logs with a high moisture content. Firewood that has been split, dried, and stored under cover for at least a year burns best and produces fewer harmful chemicals that remain in your system for years.

That is why continuously training the cooks at schools on how to best store the firewood is an important part of our programme. The training is also monitored, at least 6 times every year, to ensure the school follows the “Best Firewood Practice Manual”, because cleaner firewood burning not only means higher savings, but also a healthier environment for all.

Maintenance Ready

The end of school Term 1 is around the corner. Schools will break off on Friday 5 of May, and children will be back from their holidays on Monday 27 May, to commence with Term 2.

The holiday period is the opportunity for us to get our hands on all those institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) that need repairs. Schools receive free IICS maintenance anytime of the year, whenever needed, for a period of 10 years.

Lately, we have been experiencing corrosion on the connectors than allow the smoke to get pushed from the combustion chamber towards the chimney pipe and outside the kitchen building.

Today we collected 30 connectors that will be installed in several schools very soon, to ensure cooks continue to enjoy a smokeless kitchen environment!

New Issuance 12,540 VERs

Great news to share, as we have new carbon credits in stock. These emission reductions belong to the year 2023, where 105 schools successfully moved away from using 3-stone fires, and subsequently, reduced 12,540 tons of carbon dioxide during 365 full days. The carbon credits are the result of a lot of hard work, team effort, because without the continuous collaboration of school staff and cooks, such carbon credits would have never been issued by The Gold Standard.

Achievements are so many, and we have summarised them in the picture here below, that represent the positive impacts reflected on 9 Sustainable Development Goals.

Cooking: A Decent Job?

My favourite side of this story, the one we write together with our colleagues at Simoshi and its partners every day, is the incredible impact we make in the quality of the working environment for those involved when preparing the children’s daily meals.

The workplace should be a place where people feel happy, engaged, safe, inspired. Happiness at work reduces stress, raises your energy by 65% and boosts productivity as much as 31%. The kitchen space and the work of the cooks should be a comfortable environment, because they already experience the difficulties of hot food exposure, equipment and hot metal surfaces, withstanding the pressure of standing many hours at a time, and lifting heavy saucepans.

If the difficulties above are enhanced by the use of traditional 3-stone fireplaces, the workplace becomes intolerable. The fire flames becoming a constant threat and the smoke precluding the normal breathing are just a few of what the pictures show here below.

The positive impact in the lives of a cook the introduction of institutional improved cook stoves have in a school kitchen is something we are not only proud of here at Simoshi, but it is also a reminder that is it worth all the efforts to keep on trying, to get as many schools as we can, away from traditional cooking practices.

What We Achieved In 2023

As we prepare for great announcements because SustainCert (the validation and verification body for Gold Standard) just finalised our fifth Performance review, and the issuance of 12,540 new carbon credits is imminent, we review what we have achieved during the year 2023.

With 105 schools included under the Project Activity “Institutional Improved Cook Stoves in Uganda” and 376 institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) installed, continuously monitored and repaired of different saucepan capacities (from 30 litres to 600 litres), 15,186 tons of firewood were saved throughout the whole year, as schools successfully moved away from traditional cooking practices.

For visual purposes only (but the information we love to compare our data to) is foresters’s rule of thumb when measuring standing trees: if you can hug a tree and your fingers just overlap it, it will be about 40 cm. “diameter breast height”, roughly one ton of wet firewood. Therefore, let’s imagine 15,186 of those trees still standing today, because schools avoided cutting them down during 2023, with their energy efficient cooking technology! That is a gorgeous achievement.

There are approximately 22,000 schools in Uganda still using traditional 3-stone fires to prepare the children’s daily meals. By simply changing their cooking practices and using IICS, it would mean 3,181,828 trees could be saved every year…..That is a gorgeous dream.

Teaching Children Through Kitchen Improvements

We filmed this short video during our first visit when installing the institutional improved cook stoves in a primary school in Kawanda. When children were asked whether we should keep the trees standing or not, they all replied we should chop them off.....

Teachers slowly introduced the benefit of keeping our trees standing, and the changes in the school kitchen helped to better understand how the firewood consumption and subsequent reduction on smoke directly benefited everyone at school.

This is a great opportunity for children to share their new experiences back home, as parents usually cook with traditional stoves too. The transfer of knowledge is a great tool that will also have a positive impact in the cooking practices at the household level.

On Our Way For Repairs

Maintenance of institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) never stops. Early this morning, our colleague Robert had prepared all the material necessary to do the free repairs at 3 schools: Queen of Peace primary School, Uganda Martyrs Primary School, and Kasubi Church of Uganda Primary School.

Our commitment to supporting schools throughout a 10-year period includes free IICS maintenance. Every year we ensure the efficiency of the stoves are kept to their maximum standards. Whatever is needed, whenever is needed, we are always there with the necessary parts to replace, or repair, and have the stove performing and looking like new. For example, throughout 2023, we spent 65,725,000 Ugandan Shillings repairing IICS on 105 participating schools. This is the equivalent to USD 17,000.

Today we had focused on replacing corroded chimney pipes and connectors. It is not necessary to wait for the holiday period to perform this kind of maintenance event, the school can continue using the IICS while repairs are being made.

Never Stop Checking

Before.

This is the typical example that supports a continuous monitoring approach to the school kitchen environment. What it is sometimes explained as a census approach, it means we are checking the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) every other month - meaning at least 6 time per year - for the 10-year period Simoshi agrees to support the schools in their cooking transformation.

Malaika Kindergarten and Primary School joined our project activity in March 2022. During our routine monitoring visits last month we found the cook had started to light a traditional 3-stone fire in the kitchen. Immediately we communicated with the school head teacher to discuss the purchase of a new IICS, and today Sunday the kitchen is fully cooking again with energy efficient appliances only. This is the result of a dedicated team of project officers that are seriously checking the usage of the IICS of over 110 participating schools, as part of our commitment to ensure emission reductions are REAL.

After.

Women’s Day

Women and girls are disproportionately impacted by climate change as well as indoor air pollution. - at higher risk of health impacts, food insecurity and loss of livelihoods. They are instrumental when delivering change, and we will keep supporting them through the transition to more clean and efficient cooking practices.

Everyday we celebrate our little girls that one day will be the decision makers at their homes. Hoping that knowledge transfer from what is seen at the school kitchen is well adopted when making choices for their personal cooking activities.