Christmas donation 2025 brings warmth and clean air to Lesotho

Instead of sending gifts to our customers, the nature network is once again investing in a project that makes a real difference. With African Clean Energy (ACE), we are helping people in Lesotho access clean, efficient cookstoves that improve their daily lives and help protect the environment.

A partnership for a better future

Since beginning our collaboration with ACE in 2021, we have helped more than 7,000 people in Lesotho. In October 2024, we launched the third and final phase of the program, focusing on older community members. Around 288 households across seven rural regions have now acquired a cookstove, which benefits about 1,440 people, many of them families headed by grandmothers. Feedback from recipients has been overwhelmingly positive. One beneficiary, Matsekiso Sekhabisa, shared: “I live alone with two grandchildren who are in primary school. I use the stove to heat water and the house when they’re getting ready for school, which means a warm bath, a warm home, and warm food in the mornings.”

The new cookstove allows Matsekiso to save up to 80 percent of the money she would otherwise spend on fuel, money she can now use for food and education. Each stove also reduces carbon emissions by two to three tonnes per year. By the time the project came to a close in February 2025, it had saved a total of 12,000 tonnes of CO_2.

African Clean Energy (ACE): Protecting health and the environment

In Lesotho, many families still rely on open fires for cooking and heating — a practice that causes deforestation and severe indoor air pollution. Indoor smoke is a major health risk in developing countries, killing more people than malaria, AIDS, and tuberculosis combined. ACE has developed a solar-biomass hybrid cookstove that turns animal waste, crop residue, and small sticks into energy, while producing only minimal smoke. Equipped with a solar panel, the stove also provides electricity for LED lighting and phone charging.  covers 50 percent of the acquisition costs, allowing families to buy the stoves at half price — a simple step toward a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable future.