Currently, this is a personal initiative that is not under any designated organisation. In a rural village in Luwero district, in 100% households, cooking is done in indoors facilities without any form of ventilation. Cooking is entirely done using firewood which not only has a global impact on climate but serious local impact on human health especially women and children. We are interested in starting up a project in this village to improve ventilation systems in cooking facilities and also introduce new technologies like use of biogas, biomass and hydroelectric power. The project will aim to improve acess to better energy sources, like use of biomass and biogas. It will be a participatory initiative where the community will be involved in constructing these structures, and will be educated to adopt new better technology. The project will start with a few households and the knowlegde will be passed on to others in the village,the district and throughout the country at large. Uganda is a poor country with no legislation directly protecting local population from polluton. So there is need for interventions to improve systems that are potential sources of pollution to which such people are heavily exposed.
Contact Information
We would like to work with the rural population in this small village in Luwero district in Uganda before moving to other districts in the country. The project will also look into other issues like how this technology can be a source of improving household incomes for instance teaching the people to market their services like building better cooking facilities for other households at affordable costs hence a source of employment.
Our Experience And Interest In The Four PCIA Central Focus Areas
Since the project will be involving local populations themselves, not much social or cultural barriers are expected. We won't be introducing completely new solutions to the problem for instance the cooking facilities but just improving what already exists, like better ventililation to reduce smoke, we don't expect much resistance from the people.
Developing the technology and applying it to a few pioneer homes will be the first step. These would be used as pilot projects from which the technology will then be disseminated to other users in the district. Marketing of the new technologies will be done by the beneficiaries from the pioneer projects. Other people in the village are expected to easily adopt the same since it will be information from within.
We are interested in technology improvement to control levels of exposure to smoke, levels of pollution into the environment (carbon dioxide gas) and also on the level of deforrestation for the rural population depending on the use of firewood as a source of fuel. If technology is standardised, control on pollution levels is created starting from the simplest users.
After implementation, health analysis will be made for people in the homes selected for the pioneer projects. These will be compared to those of other people in the homes without the technology. The difference in health will be an indicator for sucess of the projects. Questionnaires will be administered for details on the effectiveness of the new technologies of biogas and biomass.
Relevant Publications or Studies
N/a
Our Contribution to the Partnership
We will exchange knowledge with other participants on how to reduce indoor air pollution which information we will use in the project. From the experience we will pass on the findings and results of the project onto the Partnership website to share with other partners.
