woman_cooking_2011_06_20

Thank you for your comment on the lack of cocnern for the impact cookstoves have on young children and women through burns. I grew up in a rural farming community and till today we have no electricty at my house and we use firewood for cooking. The hut we use as a kitchen is now less smoky because we built a chimney to replace the central fire. However several of our neighbours still use central fires as they provide more warmth in the room and well that’s always been the traditional arrangement for people to gather round the fire. As a doctor in sub-saharan Africa were in both rural and urban communities fire is the critical energy source for cooking mostly and lighting, i have seen hundreds of burns victims. During my days as a medical student i would often be so upset at parents and guardians at what i thought was gross negligence’. I would take the histories and be so ready to blast them for their irresponsible/negligent behaviour’. On occasion I would tell a few of them a piece of my mind when i saw for example a 2month old girl’s face all burnt up and that meant that there were diminished chances of her being married. But as I saw more and more of these burns even from the same communities i realized the lesson would never be learnt. As each mother visits another mother to encourage them as they cared for their burnt child, weeks after their own children get burnt. The reality is as long as people have no alternative source of energy, then these burns will continue. It doesn’t matter how much we scream about it, people need alternative sources of energy. I guess part of the reason burns are not talked about as much in middle and low income communities is people don’t know how to or want to tackle that big issue of alternative energy sources. It boils down to poverty, the big monster everyone avoids dealing with. So I strongly agree with your points on people getting SAFE cookstoves as opposed to clean ones. Certainly if i were to do a census in my rural community there would be more worried about burns that they are about getting pneumonias or cancers from the smoke. So yes the goals should be SAFE cookstoves first and then slowly bring in alternative energy sources like solar and electricity. In my own opinion elevating all cook stoves to be at least 1metre above ground will prevent a lot of under 5year olds toppling pots of hot water and porridge over themselves. Great article Jenn.

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