To promote the acceptance and adoption of solar thermal technology for domestic cooking to provide economic development and environmental benefits in countries with suitable climates and greatest need. Our focus is on developing countries. Our efforts are directed at public policy makers, influential individuals and entities both in targeted countries as well as developed countries that support development initiatives in target countries.
Contact Information
Our Focus
Our mission is to promote solar cooking for economic development and environmental relief. We have worked to accomplish that mission through creating and managing a series of solar cooking technology dissemination projects, typically in small communities, in several countries, including Mexico (with funding from PCIA and others), El Salvador, Guatemala, Mali, Senegal, Cameroon and Burkina Faso. Our current focus is advocacy and providing technical support to organizations that seek to manage solar cooking and "integrated" cooking projects (which include fuel-efficient stoves and retained heat systems) around the world.
Our Experience And Interest In The Four PCIA Central Focus Areas
We have sought to overcome social and cultural barriers first by using solar cooking demonstrations with staple local foods. Then we have trained local community leaders (typically women) in solar cooking techniques. Once trained, we have retained the most effective teachers in those groups to extend their learning to other members of the community. Our level of success in overcoming cultural barriers has depended upon both the effectiveness of the instructors, their persistence in providing ongoing encouragement to new "solar cooks" so that they gain confidence in their new skills and are comfortable experimenting and using the technology as appropriate to their individual needs.
Our strategy in pilot projects has been to try to identify local prospective commercial distributors of the solar cooking technology so that solar cooking will continue and expand after the completion of a project.
Because family sizes in some areas (including Senegal) are very large, and in other areas (including Central America) are smaller, different technologies are required. We do, however, encourage large-scale manufacturing of capacity-appropriate solar cooking technology to make it possible to achieve economies-of-scale costs and pricing.
We have used extrapolations based in substitution of smoke-free solar cooking for indoor wood-burning techniques, to evaluate impacts on exposure.
Relevant Publications or Studies
Our web site www.she-inc.org is a gateway to publications people can use. Another valuable resource is http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/
Our Contribution to the Partnership
We are interested in sharing our experiences with others.
