Safe stoves to help women in Karamoja
Due to the destruction of the Environment in Karamoja, World Food Programme (WFP) has come up with an initiative of introducing the modern technology of cooking by using the energy safe stoves which will help the Karimojong women to reduce burden of going to the bush looking for fire wood and cutting down the trees.
The programme will help Karimojong women as looking for firewood from forests and bushes is dangerous; women sometimes try to cook with very little fuel, resulting in eating undercooked food.
Looking at Karamoja generally, the region is highly insecure and chronically poor. Most of the time, it is women and children who face a constant risk of violence when they collect firewood to cook food. But the fuel-efficient stoves, built from mud, can help while also lessening pressure on the environment.
Ms Joyce Nachap, a resident of Irriir Sub County in Moroto district and one of the Karimojong women who have used the stoves, says it has relieved her of looking for firewood.
She says when she began using stoves, it seemed difficult because she had never seen such kind of the stoves in her life and even in Karamoja, but later got used to the situation.
“Since I begun using these stoves in January, I have only visited the bush twice unlike in the past when I could visit the forest six times a week,” She says.
Ms Nachap adds that she can only use four pieces of firewood for preparing her meals a day yet she could use one bundle of fire wood in two days.
Also, Ms Jessica Nakut, the beneficiary of the programme explained that by using these new stoves, it has helped them prevent their children, especially girls and women from sexual abuse such as rape, beating and murder when they are going to the bush looking for firewood.
Ms Nakut says she lost her first daughter to the cattle raiders when she had gone to look for firewood in the bush; she was also raped and thereafter shot dead. “I really like this programme, we didn’t know about this idea. If we had known this earlier, we would have not lost our children to the bushes,” she says.
However, Ms Nakut says not all women are benefiting from this sort of stove, many are still venturing into the bush on a daily basis to meet their cooking needs, running the risk of being beaten, raped and at times killed by cattle raiders.
Mr Bai Mankay Sankoh, the officer in charge World Food Programme, Moroto, says, “A mud stove not only uses less firewood, but also retains a lot of heat, which makes cooking easier and faster.”
He adds that the WFP developed the plan after noting that many trees were destroyed and many women and children were becoming involved in violence such as rape cases in the region.
According to Mr Sankoh, there are about 1.2 million people in Karamoja surviving on WFP food. In order to cook this food, women need fuel, but this is in short supply and to find it, they sometimes have to visit dangerous environments.
Impact on environment
Fuel collection is also having a devastating impact on an already precarious environment, contributing to soil erosion, desertification and loss of grazing and cultivating environments.
“Through the Safe Access to Firewood and Alternative Energy (Safe) initiative, WFP will make sure that all women in Karamoja have access to a fuel-efficient stove. At the same time, the provision of alternative livelihood resources will decrease families’ dependency on wood fuel (firewood and charcoal) for income, and reduce the risk of negative coping mechanisms to cook food,” he says.
The district Environment officer of Moroto, Mr John Lotyang, thanked the WFP for their initiatives and says the Environment department at the district level couldn’t manage to run the programme because of the limited funds.
