In March 2013 Erias was the first person in Kenya to receive a clay oven in the Nepalese style.

A few days after Installation Erias reported enthusiastically of his new stove called "Jiko". Altogether 7 pilot stoves were made.  All have served perfectly for the past two months.  Eria's enthusiasm was confirmed by the others.

After this successful pilot it is certain that we will start training the first stove makers in Kenya this year.

The decision has been made!
The executive commitee and the members meeting approved the proposal to help provide smoke-free cooking stoves in Ethiopia and Kenia.

In the last weeks a preliminary investigation was completed in Ethiopia. First pilot stoves were installed in Kenia. In both cases the results were very encouraging.

The next steps will be planned according to the conditions in each country: For Ethiopia the stove design has to be adapted to the cooking methods prevalent there. The existing design can be used unchanged in Kenia. The first stovemakers will be trained shortly.

The Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 has been published recently. It is a comparative assessment on the effect of risk factors for the disease burden in 21 regions in 1990 to 2010.

In most of Sub-Saharan Africa, household air pollution (HAP) was found to be the among the 3 leading risks together with childhood underweigth and suboptimal breastfeeding. In South Asia HAP is the leading risk. World wide HAP is ranked four.

See the summary and find more information here. Listen also to Dr. Lynn Goldman emphasizing the impact of HAP on the health of young children.

"Smoke-free stoves" was the central theme of the Advent Market in Steinsvorde this year. The Buschmanns, owners of The Tannenhof", offered the space for the market and donated the fees which the kiosk holders paid to our projects. That alone resulted in 800 Euro and correspondingly 100 smoke-free stoves.

Many people visited our kiosk (photo) and donated generously too ensuring many more families in Nepal can look forward to their new smoke-free stove.

Further photos of the event can be found in the press (Kreiszeitung).

Do you remember the Stovemakers advent calendar from 2012?  Christa's tales were so ethusiastically received that we have decided to publish them again this year.

We've posted the entire collection as four tales on our virtual notice board for you to browse at your leisure.

Our project"Smokeless Cook Stoves for Rural Districts of Nepal" has been accepted by Gold Standard and is now a listed project. With this milestone we have taken a big hurdle towards authorisation.

With the inclusion in the project list Gold Standard has accepted the project and will continue with a detailed technical check. The next step towards recognition of the Stovemaker's contribution to global climate protection has been taken.

You can find the proceedings in the Gold Standard database under the registration number  GS1191.

The Nepalese clay stove at the  bayerischen Zentrum für angewandte Energieforschung (The Bavarian Center for Applied Energy Research - ZAE Bayern) has been operational for a few days.  We had to be patient especially as the times to dry the clay bricks and then the stove are somewhat longer in our autumn climate than in Nepal.

Last Saturday we finally fired up the stove for the first time, boiled a few liters of water and prepared maize for a snack. 

Now the stove has surived it's baptism of fire (literally ;-), it is ready for the measurements and demonstrations for which it was built.

Since December 2009 PAYBACK members can not only use the collected points for bonuses. It is also possible to donate points to charitable projects.  As of today the Stovemakers is registered as a charitable project with PAYBACK.

You can donate your payback points directly to our project.  You can do that with a click on the PAYBACK logo on this page or on our "Suport Us Page".

Altogether members of the leading German bonus scheme donated PAYBACK points worth 2 million Euros to charitable projects in Germany and worldwide since this faciility was made available.

The PAYBACK donation cheme was implemented in co-operation with betterplace.org, Germany's largest donation platform. The value of the donated points is transferred completely (no discount or handling charge) to the relevant organisation.

On June 26th 2012 the first Nepalese smoke-free cooking stove was erected in Germany.   School children of class 5 of the Helene-Lange-Schule in Wiesbaden built it under guidance of Katharina Dworschak and Frank Dengler.

The preparations began weeks earlier.  Moulds for making the clay bricks had to be made in woodwork class.  The iron strengtheners had to be welded.  The cooking pots which are common in Nepal were specially imported.   Then the clay bricks were made and left to dry for several weeks.

On June 26th everything was ready.  About two dozen helpful, dexterous hands accompanied by project leader Frank Schulze managed to build the stove, similar to the 10.000 or so installed in Nepal, within a few hours.

The stove will be left to dry over the summer holidays.  It will be fired up for the first time for the UNESCO project day which the Helene-Lange-Schule is holding on the 19th of September. Then the project group will prepare Nepalese dishes and learn some more about the Nepalese way-of-life.

The environment protection project of the Stovemakers has achieved two important goals:

On May 13th the Stakeholder Consultation Meeting was held at the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in Kathmandu. More than 20 participants including Nepalese officials, representatives from impacted villages and other aid organisations reviewed the project and contributed comments and ideas on how to improve it. The Stakeholder Consulting Meeting is an important step toward approval for the project by Gold Standard.

After intensive negotiations with the responsible authorities concerning the assignment of the project areas an agreemenent with the Alternativ Energy Promotion Center (AEPC) was signed on May 16th. Our partner organisation Swastha Chulo Nepal is sole responsible for provision of clay stoves for 28 villages (VDCs) the the districts of Kavrepalanchok, Ramechhap and Dolakha.

Both events are important milestones on the route to authorisation of the environmental protection project by Gold Standard. The returns on sales of emission certificates should significantly extend our ability to provide smoke free stoves in the coming years.

On December 4th the German radio station "Bayern5 Aktuell" transmitted a report about the Stovemakers as part of the program "intercultural magazine".

A  Podcast is of the program which was trasnmitted between 13:05 and 13:30 on the 4th is available online.  The report about the Stovemakers starts about 10 minutes and 20 seconds into the podcast.

A further transmission went out via Bayern 1 and Bayern 2 on December 27th and 28th.

This year "BMW Group Award for social initiatives by employees" was awarded for the first time. The Stovemakers were among the five groups to be rewarded.  According to the (German language) press report, the jury was impressed by the extraordinary combination of professional competence and private engagement.

We see this award as confirmation of our work to date and as a motivation for our future endeavours.

Our partner organisation, Swastha Chulo Nepal (SCN), was officially registered in Nepal on 13th June 2011.  That was the critical net step to allow the organisation to take up it's work.

On 29th June the registration as affiliated member of the Social Welfare Council was completed. This allows SCN to work with foreign organizations like the stove makers.