This Spring has put a definite spring in Vita’s step as it marks the one year anniversary of Vita’s new community-led approach to fuel-efficient cookstoves in Ethiopia. This approach put rural communities in East Africa at the centre of the project and prompted people to come up with their own solutions to address the biggest issues affecting their lives. That is to say, deforestation, climate change, and dangerous cooking practices.
In the past year, community members have come together and successfully introduced 100% of households to Vita’s clean cooking stoves that avoided the traditional, open-fire stove that was causing such rapid tree loss. The change amongst these communities is unrecognisable with every family now using a clean and safe Vita stove that benefits their health and saves time and money collecting firewood. Best of all, this community-led approach has inspired the villages to go even further in protecting the environment and their livelihoods. Vita is currently helping them with their request for large, communal, fuel-efficient stoves for community events like weddings, funerals and religious festivities when they have to cook for a lot of people.
Coming together to take real climate action has been an inspiring experience and Vita looks forward to bringing this approach to many more communities in the coming months. Vita will be collaborating with Dublin Libraries to host a series of workshops around this very topic from April – June – keep an eye on Vita’s website for updates.
