Smoke Hood and Chimney
80% of people in rural sub-Saharan Africa depend on bio-mass (wood, dung, crop residue) for domestic energy. The traditional way of cooking in rural Kenya is using a 3 rock stove and cooking indoors in an unventilated room. The resulting indoor air pollution increases common, serious health problems and causes over 400,000 deaths per year in Africa. Women and children who spend a lot of time in the kitchen suffer the most.
A simple Smoke Hood and Chimney placed over an indoor stove and vented through the roof is a proven solution to draw smoke out of a house, eliminating up to 80% of smoke that plagues most rural African homes. However, smoke hoods and chimneys are not widely used in Africa, primarily due to poor understanding of the health effects of indoor air pollution, lack of knowledge that a simple solution exists, and lack of resources to buy such solutions. Other projects in Kenya have shown that when first introduced, only 1 or 2 women in a village will elect to try a smoke hood without seeing it first hand. After seeing it work and seeing how much smoke it takes out of the house, over ½ of the women elected to have a smoke hood and chimney installed in their homes.
As part of the JOY Kitchens household solution set, the Jubilee Village Project is looking to introduce smoke hoods and chimneys to the homes of Kager village. The Project’s approach has always been to partner up with members of Kager Village to implement new ideas. After discussing the risks of indoor air pollution and building fires with Mark Orenda, Energy & Environment Champion, and Rose Mboya, Housing & Shelter Cahmpion, the vision of reducing smoke and enhancing the quality of households was well received. One of the goals from our October 2009 village visit to Kager was to build and install a smoke hood and chimney prototype in one kitchen of the JOY Kitchens women’s group.
John McKenzie, Housing & Shelter Partner, and Doug Kyle, Transportation Partner, worked with Williams Comfort Air (Indianapolis, IN) to design and build a proto-type model from 2 pieces of sheet metal, which is an easy material to obtain in Kenya. The only tools needed to construct the solution are tin snips, rivets, rivet gun and a drill.
After constructing a prototype in Indianapoilis, John and Doug took cardboard templates of the prototype design with them to Kenya and were able to purchase the sheet metal at a nearby market for under $20. It took the two of them about 5 hours working together to build and install the frist smokehood and cimney in Gladys Kayando’s kitchen. After a day of working without the modern conveniences of a nearby hardware store, it was a wonderful sight to see the smoke billowing out of the chimney after its installation.
It is the prayer of the Project that many of the women from Kager will come to see how the smoke hood works and see how much cleaner and clearer a kitchen equipped with it can be. We also pray that God will lift up a craftsman or metal worker in the village who has the mechanical aptitude to design, build and sell them in the village. This would fit in perfectly with our micro-finance initiative. It truly is amazing with a just a little know-how and an investment of $25 per home, the health and well-being of women and children in Kager village will be greatly improved.