Fantastic Start

The commencement of the first school term was a hectic one for us here at Simoshi, as we had an amazing demand of institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) from new schools wanting to join our Project Activity.

Since the year 2023 kicked off, five new schools have now improved their kitchen environment and purchased IICS to replace their old cooking practices:

• Mariam High School

• St. Denis Ssebuggwawo S.S. Ggaba

• Kiwafu Muslim Primary School

• Nsangi Mixed Primary School

• Chadwick Namate Primary School

Such high demand means schools are slowly recovering from the tough 2-year closure during the Covid-19 pandemic and the financial struggles this meant to many. We anticipate a busy 2023 and expect another 20 new schools joining before the year ends.

Our Partnership Is In Vogue

Yesterday we received a newsletter from the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA) announcing a group of organisations — including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Gold Standard (GS), and the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA), among others, are working to harness the potential of the carbon market and build awareness for market-oriented solutions.

Since 2016, Simoshi has been working hand in hand with the UNFCC and the GS through its registered Project Activity “Institutional Improved Cook Stoves for Schools and Institutions in Uganda” (10345 and GS 4364 respectively). With three successful verifications, and a fourth now underway, we have managed to use carbon credit revenues to help over 100 schools move away from traditional 3-stone fires to energy efficient cook stoves.

“Cooking has historically received insufficient investment from public and private sources. As such, the carbon market, with its large funding flows and rapid growth, could provide the financial resources necessary to rapidly expand clean cooking access. However, clean cooking has struggled to attract sustained, large-scale funding flows from the carbon market”, the newsletter reads. Nothing could be more accurate, when back then in 2016, carbon financing was a “bad word’, an “obsolete concept” or a “failed approach”, we stood up to our convictions and continued to pursue our validation and subsequent verifications.

Owen Hewlett, Chief Technical Officer of The Gold Standard Foundation, said, “For the past 15 years the clean cooking community and carbon market have worked together to refine our approaches to estimating and validating the impact of clean cooking projects. Two years ago, we comprehensively overhauled our methodologies. We will need to make further changes in future as we continue to learn how to make these projects even more effective - and as we align with the Paris Agreement and changing norms in the voluntary carbon market.”

UNFCCC earlier undertook a review resulting in changes to the default values used in CDM methodologies for clean cooking, requiring more conservative conversion factors, baselines, fNRB values and stove stacking assumptions. 

CCA and UNFCCC are currently supporting additional research on methodology updates as they relate to baselines and fNRB values. GS has updated its cookstove methodologies and introduced conservative default factors, improved monitoring requirements with safeguards and caps including maximum permissible levels for key inputs like baseline fuel and usage rate. And we have updated all of our procedures and Project Design Document to ensure the highest integrity is achieved by our Project Activity intervention.

We welcome the latest developments in the cook stove sector, and hope to see many more high quality projects using carbon financing as a tool to deliver the much needed clean cooking devices this part of the world needs.

What A Change!

An image says it all……..therefore there is no need to go into detail to explain how this new school joining our Project Activity, Kiwafu Muslim Primary School, has made a positive impact not only by saving over 50% of firewood when preparing the children’s daily meals.

It has also provided with a decent working space for the cooks, cleaner breathing air to all those in the surrounding areas, and more free time as these institutional improved cook stoves are much faster - please check our Instagram pase as Salimah, here pictured, explains how cooks used to start preparing food at 4am, and now they do so at 8am with their new stoves!

Schools Open Ahead Of Schedule

Some private schools are starting the academic 2023 year ahead of the official government opening of schools calendar on the 6th of February.

Our team is busy deploying new institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) to schools that are new to the Project Activity. This means training of cooks is also under way to ensure proper handling and care, achieving the maximum standards on the kitchen environment.

We found many schools already opening their classrooms to top classes this week. Therefore IICS are urgently needed to prepare the daily meals. Below we share pictures of two new schools in Mityana and Kampala having their IICS installed.

2021 Vintage Sold Out

During our last verification for carbon credits, which was the third since the Project Activity was registered back in 2017, we issued 1,647 Gold Standard verified emission reductions (VERs). This was a smaller amount when compared to our first issuance back in 2019 of 8,457 GS CERs, because the Covid-19 pandemic saw schools in Uganda closed for almost 2 years - which meant cooking activities stopped, hence no emission reductions happened.

Nevertheless, we still managed to issue for the few months schools were allowed to open since March 2020 when restrictions started to be imposed on the population.

And those 1,647 carbon credits that were available for sale on the Gold Standard Marketplace, have now been sold out! As you have read from our previous posts, we are right now busy working on our fourth verification, and expect over 10,000 VERs by the end of March this year - just less than two months away. So please stay tuned as we continue to handhold the schools with their cooking transitions.

Auditor Site Visit

Today we have finished with the on site visit with the local expert from the Gold Standard accredited Validation and Verification body 4KScience India Ltd., as our Project Activity “Institutional Improved Cook Stoves for Schools and Institutions in Uganda” goes through its fourth verification. This is a mandatory exercise when requesting for a carbon credit issuance, that lasted three days, where 14 schools were randomly selected, institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) inspected, and school staff interviewed.

Uganda Stove Manufacturers Limited (Ugastove) responsible for manufacturing the IICS, was also part of the inspection and its CEO Ms. Rehema Nakyazze took answered many questions regarding operational procedures, quality assurance and quality control, and safety measures in place.

Below are some images of the intensive days of school visits from Simoshi’s total population of 95 schools.

Hello 2023

Perseverance pays off, at least here at Simoshi we always claim to never give up…..and we love to share stories such as the one from Mariam High School. This is a girls only boarding school with 460 pupils, a school we have been visiting since early 2017, visiting the kitchen, sensitising the school administrators, and annually checking up on them as we explained why joining Simoshi’s Project Activity would be a good choice.

The school called us this week to announce some great news! They will be destroying their old stoves and getting rid of the 3-stone fires this January, starting the school term in 2023 with their new institutional improved cook stoves (IICS). They have been consuming 8 trucks of firewood per term, and we cannot wait to see them reducing their consumption to half as we bring the new IICS to their kitchen.

Wrapping Up 2022

We would like to close the year with a last blog post that highlights a summary of the successes achieved during 2022. Despite the usual ups and downs and most importantly, the consequences of the post Covid-19 pandemic economic effects on the population and schools, here at Simoshi we have managed to reach the highest number of schools included under the Project Activity.

The purpose of this project activity is the dissemination of institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) in schools and institutions in Uganda. The IICS disseminated are manufactured by Uganda Stove Manufacturers Limited (Ugastove). The model is the portable rocket firewood IICS of different sizes that meet the minimum thermal efficiency requirement of 20%. The different IICS sizes are conditioned by the saucepan capacity and range from 30 litres and up to 450 litres.

The sale of IICS and increase number of schools using the cooking technology ensures access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy is achieved. Through a continuous data input to the Simoshi’s sales database and quarterly through the on-site inspection of the IICS to confirm it is performing in optimal manner, Simoshi monitored the number of 95 new schools/institutions that accessed clean energy services and their 336 IICS in use of different saucepan capacities during the monitoring period.

Our message to readers can only be of gratitude, as usual! We look forward to the opportunities 2023 has to bring, and embrace challenges that have always guided our team to become stronger, more resilient and better when helping schools when improving their cooking activities.

Before and After

On-going training of all kitchen staff involved in the preparation of school meals is part of Simoshi’s obligations, to ensure an optimal performance of the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS).

Unfortunately, not every school delivers the same results, and during our quarterly spot-checks when supervising the IICS conditions, we find these can be very different. Although most schools’ IICS usually need maintenance once a year, when cooks neglect the advice give to take good care of their stoves, those same repairs can happen three times a year.

The typical mistakes that really damage the IICS combustion chamber is using big firewood logs, which end up cracking and breaking the grates and bricks that support such firewood.

Below are two videos that very clearly show the condition of a “before” and “after” situation as our Maintenance Officer performs the IICS repairs during the quarterly school visit. And remember, all there repairs are free of cost to all participating schools under our Project Activity.

Second Institution In Jinja

The month of December found us welcoming a new school in Jinja. Vic View Primary School in now ready to start cooking using the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS). This is a primary school of approximately 600 day and boarding students. Currently consuming 4 trucks of firewood per term, they will be soon start to see the firewood savings reducing to half of that consumption, as they moved away from their previous 3-stone fires.

Vic View came recommended from our existing client, Home of Hope, an orphanage located not far away from the school, that has joined our Project Activity since 2019. On our way from Kampala, we passed via the beautiful Mabira forest, a natural tropical rainforest established in the 1900s. Mabira translates as “a big forest” in the local language. We hope interventions like those with our IICS will help to contribute to the preservation of its 306 square kilometers.

Funding: The Usual Suspect

The clean cooking sector has been struggling for many years to get their voice heard…..and when I say too many years, I am counting over 40 right now. It is of no surprise to read the latest article from the Clean Cooking Alliance, as they shared their latest news from their participation at COP27 in Egypt.

“Worldwide, 2.4 billion people lack access to clean cooking, which results in millions of premature deaths, large quantities of climate pollutants, unabated forest degradation in global biodiversity hot spots, and a continuous burden on women and children typically charged with collecting fuel wood.

Given this enormous impact, it is disgraceful that clean cooking solutions attract such a miniscule fraction of international climate finance and private capital. The current level of funding and investment in the clean cooking sector has not matched the global magnitude of the challenge, hovering in the tens of millions of dollars, and is highly concentrated in a small number of countries, technologies, and ventures. If the funding and financing trend continues along current trends, 2.1 billion people will still be without access in 2030 and it will take more than 1,000 years to achieve universal access to clean cooking”.

What the Clean Cooking Alliance states resonates very well with the funding road Simoshi went through during its early years. It was difficult to get donors to believe in the model we were presenting back in 2016, which relied - and still does - 100% in the revenue streams generated from the sale of carbon credits. Back then it was a risky model, a new company that had not yet been through any issuance….

Nevertheless, Simoshi successfully went through 3 verifications, issuing over 14,000 Certified Emission Reductions and Verified Emission Reductions. Right now, we are about to close our fourth verification exercise. And do you know what the most gratifying feeling of all is? Not depending on donor funding to support our current 100 schools included under our Project Activity!

Closing Monitoring Report

We are busy closing our fourth monitoring report, which includes figures and achievements from the year 2022. As we give the final touches to the long Word document that will be handed over to the auditor (or VVB) for verification purposes, we thought of sharing the impact made throughout this year thanks to the 95 schools that are operating the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) under our Project Activity:

• 10,330 tons of CO2 not emitted into the atmosphere

• 12,752 tons of firewood reduced

• 236 cooks confirmed better air quality

• 158 women trained on the IICS benefits

• Ugandan shillings 258,840,999 saved by schools on firewood not purchased

• 545 training sessions conducted, 393 kitchen staff trained, 570 kitchen training assessments made, ensuring a safe cooking and learning environment for both cooks and children who usually get food served from the kitchen

Stay tuned as we keep on sharing the progress made this year on all of our supported schools and the amazing impact achieved on the 9 Sustainable Development Goals!

Ready For Maintenance Season

The school year is soon coming to an end, which means school kitchens will be closed too throughout the month of December. This is the best time to conduct the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) annual maintenance to ensure they continue operating at their highest efficiency. And remember, all of these repairs are 100% free to all schools included under Simoshi’s Project Activity.

That is why we have been stocking our warehouse with all the needed IICS insulated bricks, metal sheets and chimney parts to be ready for the annual maintenance events. Although December is the best month to perform these activities, we are continuously repairing stoves throughout the whole year. The difference is that major maintenance events, such as welding of combustion chambers and other IICS parts, can be done now, as we have the necessary time needed when the school kitchens will be closed for over 30 days.

Training Our Staff

This week we have been busy at Simoshi’s office, improving our skills on how to best operate the welding and grinding portable machines. As part of our free services provided to all schools, institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) are repaired every year, for a period of 10 years, to ensure firewood savings are achieved at the maximum level.

Sometimes, the maintenance event can include repairing the metal parts of the IICS body. This is why we recently acquired portable welding and grinding machines to make the work easier on site. We want to thank Kabogooza from Ugastove for providing all the technical support. Below are some pictures of the learning process we all went through this first week of November.

Supply of High Quality Carbon Credits

Yesterday we came across the newsletter published by the Cool Effect, an organisation that started in 1998 with clean-burning cookstoves and had grown into a globally recognised non-profit platform that’s successfully reducing carbon pollution.

We though important to share their statistics on emission reductions, ahead of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (also known as COP27) taking place in Egypt soon.

A high-quality carbon credit accurately or conservatively represents greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions or removals achieved through voluntary carbon market (VCM) activities. VCM projects and programs that generate high-quality carbon credits maximise climate, socio-economic and ecological benefits for local communities and ecosystems as appropriate to the project type and sector.

This is why carbon credits generated from our Project Activity “Institutional Improved Cook Stoves for Schools and Institutions in Uganda” registered with the Gold Standard, and accredited with 9 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are continuously monitored through the collection of various indicators, are quantified and reported annually to ensure all benefits reach the communities in most need.

To learn more please visit the Gold Standard Marketetplace here.

Ebola Outbreak And Schools

There is a current Ebola outbreak in Ugnda of the Sudan ebolavirus. Over 130 people have been infected as of 28 October this year. Although the most affected district is Mubende, some few cases have now been reported among children in schools in Kampala. Therefore the MInistry of Education and Sports issued a circular over this weekend instructing schools across the country to restrict visits to school premises until the end of the school term, on 9 December 2022.

Here at Simoshi we continue to support schools in all of their cooking activities, and ensure safety first, allocating monitoring and maintenance work taking place mainly on weekends (Friday and Saturday) when day scholars go back home, to avoid unnecessary risks.

Seinsitizing Head Teachers

This week we had the opportunity to talk about the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) to Head Teachers of Wakiso District schools. The meeting took place at Lake Victoria Primary School, where we recently installed 3 IICS. From the hall we all went straight to the kitchen, where all head teachers had the opportunity to see the IICS live and interact with the cooks to clarify many questions about their performance. The video below is just a short pick from that fantastic surprising experience.

Bad Storage = Bad Combustion

Institutional Improved Cook Stoves (IICS) minimize the problem of dirty smoke generated from burning firewood and alarming deforestation rates. There are many species of trees all with different forms based on their varying fiber structures and densities. This means they differ in the ways they can be used and also the amounts of energy they store. Firewood does not always contain the same amount of energy. The main reason for this is the water that is stored inside it:

• Fresh wood contains up to 50% of water, and water does not burn.

• When firewood is dried for one year, its calorific value doubles, having the water content decrease from 50% up to 15%

Burning dry firewood with efficient combustion results in clean burning with few particles. When firewood burns, three things happen:

1.     Water is removed by evaporation

2.     Chemically, the firewood breaks down into charcoal, gas and volatile liquids, with carbon dioxide and water being the chief end products

3.     The charcoal burns, forming carbon dioxide either directly or with an intermediate conversion to carbon monoxide.

Educating schools and kitchen staff on how best to store firewood is one of the many aspects involved in our training programme. Here below, a picture that clearly shows the bubbles in the firewood stick while burning, that result from a high water content. This in not a one-off session, but an on-going exercise that is documented, with those involved during the kitchen visits signing the training sheets.

Posho & Beans Become A Challenge

School are struggling to feed learners due to the sharp rise in prices of maize flour, which is the main ingredient of most meals prepared in schools across the country. On a daily basis, children mostly have posho and beans for lunch, with the exception of boarders where they have a variety of meat, rice nd matooke on their Sunday menu.

Malnutrition affects over 21% of school-going children in Africa and contributes to immediate and long-term adverse consequences for development and health (Best et al, 2010). Although data on the nutrition status of school-aged children in Uganda is limited, the available evidence indicates that micronutrient deficiencies are common with anaemia rates reaching 46% in girls 11-14 years of age (Barugahara et al, 2013). The prevalence of undernutrition in children aged 5-19 years is 31% among boys and 17% among girls alongside rising burdens of overweight, 16% in girls and 5% in boys (Global Nutrition Report, 2020).

With the introduction of institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) that replace the most popular 3-stone fires used to prepare the daily meals, an average school with 700 hundred learners can save approximately USD 1,500 on firewood annual purchases. This means the money saved on firewood not used for cooking activities is currently helping school administrators to use such funds to support the purchase of the increasing maize flour prices. This is another success story we always like to share as part of the benefits this Project Activity delivers as schools move up the energy ladder.

The Irony Of A Well Intended Sign Post

Yesterday we visited a government school located n Kawempe, supported by WWF and Plan International, who had the best intentions when placing a sign post that reads “Use an efficient cooking stove” right in front of the school kitchen.

The irony is we found destroyed stoves, that a long time ago, could have well represented what that sign post still proudly reads on the school grounds.

It is a pity that for several reasons - either financial constraints, lack of knowledge, shortage of technical availability - schools end up consuming a lot of firewood when preparing their daily meals, because improved cook stoves are not maintained.

This is why we are always proud to tell our readers how carbon financing is allowing all our schools included under our Project Activity to have their institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) repaired for free, once a year, for ten years! That allows the schools to continue achieving their 50% firewood savings in the same way as when the IICS were first installed, providing the cooks and children with reduced indoor air pollution, while having a positive impact on the country’s deforestation rate.