Efficient cooking stoves and solar shower bags for Yagnob families

2023-11-01 18:44

From October 21 to 24, the Little Earth staff again visited villages in the Yagnob Valley, where the organization is implementing the project “Sustainable use of natural resources and women’s participation in Yagnob mountain communities.” Here, 20 women participating in the project were given additional sets of equipment. This time, they each received an efficient cooking stove and a portable solar shower bag.

The distributed efficient "rocket" type cooking stoves are reliable and safe. They save fuel, cooking time and reduce harmful emissions. In turn, using solar shower bags can warm up the water on a clear, sunny day. The device can be used both at home in the yard and in outdoor conditions, for example, on summer pastures.

“Each participant and her family now have a range of different resource-saving devices, including a solar parabolic cooker, solar lighting system, solar shower bag, pressure cooker, efficient cooking stove and thermos. This equipment is already helping them to significantly reduce the consumption of firewood and dried manure, it improves sanitary conditions, makes daily work easier and increases comfort. At the same time, less rare forest resources are cutting down,” says Anton Timoshenko, executive director of Little Earth.

During the equipment distribution, the Little Earth employees told the women about the benefits of the new devices, explained the principles and the basic rules of their operation. They also demonstrated how much fuel could be saved using the new stove. For this purpose, in the village of Makhtimain they prepared vegetable soup on it. Local residents and project participants present at the demonstration noted that this required much less wood and dried manure than if they had done it on a traditional stove.

It is worth recalling that the target villages are located on the territory of a natural ethnographic national park created in 2019 to preserve unique landscapes, as well as the special traditions and customs of the Yaghnobi people. Therefore, the knowledge and resource-saving equipment that local residents receive as part of the project have a positive impact on both local communities and the ecosystems of the valley as a whole.

The project “Sustainable natural resource management and women's participation in Yagnob mountain communities” is supported by the Swedish association Forum-CIV and implemented with the assistance of the Swedish partner Centralasiengrupperna.

Timur Idrisov, The Little Earth.