Christmas Donation 2024: Promoting health, the environment, and education.

Smoky huts, barely affordable fuel, and the time-consuming search for firewood are now things of the past for thousands of wild rosehip collectors in Lesotho. This year again, instead of sending gifts to our customers, we are investing the money into helping people buy clean, efficient cookstoves that improve their daily lives and protect the environment.

A cookstove that protects health and the environment

The open fires that people in Lesotho traditionally use to prepare their meals and keep warm are responsible for much deforestation and harmful air pollution in the home.

Indoor air pollution is a serious health hazard in many developing countries. More people die from it than from malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis combined. Organization African Clean Energy (ACE) came up with a solution to the problem: a solar-biomass hybrid cookstove that turns animal waste, crop residue, small sticks, etc. into energy – generating heat while emitting only negligible amounts of smoke. The stoves are also equipped with a solar panel, enabling them to generate electricity for LED lighting and smartphone charging. We take on 50 percent of the acquisition costs for the stoves, meaning that the families pay only half price.

A partnership for a better future

Since we began working with ACE in 2021, our project has helped more than 5,700 people in Lesotho. So that we can equip even more families with these beneficial cookstoves, we recently extended the program into a third phase, this one focusing on older members of the community. Since October 2024, around 288 households in seven rural regions of Lesotho have acquired a cookstove, benefitting around 1,440 people.

In many cases the families who received support were headed by grandmothers. The new cookstove enables them to save as much as 80 percent of the money they would otherwise have to spend on fuel. The saved money can then be spent on food and education instead. The feedback from project recipients has been very positive, and we have been delighted to hear how much easier the cookstoves have made their daily lives.

Another advantage is that the cookstoves emit far less carbon than the conventional open fires, with savings of two to three tonnes per year for each stove. By the end of the project we will have achieved an annual CO₂ reduction of around 2,820 tonnes.

Multi-talented: The biomass-fired cookstove doesn’t only bring warmth into people’s homes and let them prepare their meals practically smoke-free, it also comes with an LED lamp and USB ports for charging smartphones.