Helping Darfur Refugees, One Stove At A Time

BERKELEY, Calif., Sep. 6, 2007 (KGO) (KGO) -- In the Darfur region of Africa, refugees of a cultural war are being forced out of their homes and into camps.

The simple task of finding wood to cook a meal can take hours. Thanks to an initiative by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and their drive to discover a more efficient way to cook, preparing a meal in Darfur is now a little easier.

Tortured by years of war, more than 2 million people now roam the arid plains of Darfur. Each day is just as much a struggle as the last to get enough to eat. Rations trickle in from around the world, but turning that into something edible often means a seven hour trek for firewood.

"That's when they are getting raped and assaulted, and it's become a serious, serious problem," said Ashok Gadgil, Lawrence Berkeley lab physicist.

Gadgil got a call in 2004 from USAID workers asking for a solution to the lengthy and dangerous firewood treks. He worked towards a solution for years.

"Eventually I found that almost all of them, like 98% of them, 99% percent of them, cook on just three stones. Three big stones - supporting a pot and a fire is lighted below in the space below the pot," said Gadgil. "A three stone fire is the least efficient way in which you could use firewood."

Under his direction, U.C. Berkeley students engineered a solution.

"We're starting from very primitive technology," said Susan Amrose, U.C. Berkeley student.

Amrose was among the students who toiled over a solution. Coming up with a prototype was easy.

"The hard part was testing it. Now, we wanted to verify that this saved more wood than the original design. That took many Saturdays of 8 hours of tests, in which we would test it with the different things they cook in Darfur. We tested it in windy conditions and non-windy conditions - basically a lot of soot-filled Saturdays," said Amrose.

After months of tinkering, the group came up with a stove that uses 75 percent less wood than a three stone fire.

The challenge now was to break down the stove into components that could be assembled half a world away.

"What we've decided right from the very get-go is that we wanted to have the stoves manufactured in Darfur," said Ken Chow, Engineers Without Borders.

Chow broke the stove down into easy to assemble pieces that can be put together in the refugee camps.

"We have one pilot facility right now. It's made about 200 stoves as a pilot production and we're planning on ramping up to about 6 facilities," said Chow.

The stoves are then sold at a discounted rate to people in the camps.

"We see that as an issue of dignity. When you give handouts, you basically turn them to beggars, which is really what we don't want to do," said Chow.

Each stove saves the average person in Darfur from having to buy $200 worth or firewood, and more importantly, fewer will risk their lives collecting it.

"I know that the long term solution is really a political solution - not just an engineers' solution. This is a Band-Aid relative to the scale of the problem," said Gadgil.

It's a solution though, that can change the lives of so many people. Thus, the focus now has turned to getting enough stoves built to meet the demand.

"It's frustrating to note that we now have a solution that works - that can alleviate suffering, that can be sent to Darfur and use less wood. And we know that the people there want it. And it's frustrating to not have the money to do that," said Amrose.

Click below for more information:

Darfur Stove Project

Written and Produced by Ken Miguel.

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