SUCCESS!! After 9 months of work we have finally built our first ecostove! I received a grant through ECPA (the environment and climate partnership of the Americas) to build ecostoves in my community. As part of the grant community members need to contribute to the project as well. The families in my stove group are responsible for getting sand and rocks (that get mixed in with cement), ash (used as insulation to fill the stoves) and dirt from a specific type of ant (used to stick together the bricks on the inside of the stove). Also, we did fundraisers (in the form of raffles, people donated small prizes and everyone sold tickets for a quarter, they LOVE raffles), to raise money to pay for the gasoline needed to transport the bricks. A member of my community works for an NGO called Cosecha Sostenible (Sustainable Harvest), and used a Cosecha car to do the brick transport for us. ANAM (the ministry of the environment) helped me transport the cement, rebar, cement blocks, and wire that we needed). We also did fundraisers for money to purchase gasoline to power the saw to cut the bricks.
Now, before I show pictures and explain the construction of the ecostoves I guess I should explain WHAT an ecostove is. In Panama traditional cooking is done over an open fire, generally women use 3 rocks to balance their pots and cook on top of this. This method of cooking using a LOT of firewood, leading to deforestation. It also gives off a lot of smoke and is dangerous for small children and pets. Ecostoves are a more efficient way of cooking with firewood. They are much more efficient, burning hotter which allows food to cook faster, requires less firewood and emits less smoke. Also the flames are enclosed, so children are less likely to be accidently burned. The volunteer before me built some stoves in the community, and when I got to site many more families were interested in the stoves. We are going to build 16 family stoves, and hopefully 3 industrial (larger stoves). Here are some pictures of the stove building process!
we had to move the bricks to where we were going to cut them
cutting the bricks. . .in 6 hours we only cut the bricks for 3 stoves, it's a LONG, dirty, process
haha everyone told me that it looks like I'm about to give a sermon. . .
you have to soak the bricks in water or else they suck all the water out of the cement when you stick them together
kids collected rocks to mix with the cement
best little helper ever! helping me shovel sand into a bucket
we reinforce the cement table with rebar
putting down the cement blocks
mold for the table and completed rebar
mixing cement!
this is the inside part of the stove, we use mud to stick it together because cement breaks under too much heat
inside of stove
building the outside part of the stove
almost done!
CSIP- Cosecha Sostenible Internacional Panama
CP- Cuerpo de Paz
Finished stove! that is ash in the middle to act as an insulator
