Following up with the cookstoves in our communities

So the first week out in the communities was really about getting as many cookstoves into the households as possible. Come week two, however, it’s all about feedback! – are the people using the cookstoves? Are they finding it delivers the benefits that we sold to them? Do they like the product? Will they give their demo stove back?

The response from our communities was initially mixed. One lady still had her cookstove in the box because she’s tried it once after we left, had trouble lighting it and hadn’t touched it since. Our Pollinator persisted and convinced the lady to let us have a bit of a ‘cook off’: her traditional stove Vs our cookstove. This experiment was a raging success as our cookstove burns wood more efficiently and thereby has a stronger flame than the traditional methods. As a result our pot was ready first and she eventually moved her other pot from her old cookstove to our one – success!! We went to visit her again a couple of days later and she was using the stove everyday and loving it!

A traditional cookstove complete with blowing pipe

Kat, Sneha and me (L to R) sitting with the community, talking about
the benefits of cookstoves

A lady preparing chipatis to cook on our cookstove!

It was particularly saddening to go back to the Drum community. We arrived to a flurry of activity – loads of people outside in groups, clearly distressed. Turned out that one of the men in that community had been killed the night before; he was 27 years old with a wife and two children; I shudder to think what life is ahead of that woman and her children now. In addition to that, a child from that community had been snatched earlier that day! Hard to believe that this type of thing would happen (and this was the first such instance of both of those events for Pollinate more generally), but then again, have to keep reminding myself that these people are living in very precarious and uncertain situations where they have very few rights

Some of the kids from Drum community lining up to get their photo taken

A few days later, we returned to Drum to find that the community was completely packing up and moving (to where many did not know!). Already about a third of the community had left by the time we arrived. It was particularly sad for our Pollinator Krishna who has built long term relationships with so many of them (not to mention that quite a few still had repayments to pay on their solar lights and now he has no idea where to collect the instalments from!). The lady that had taken a cookstove really liked it, but had to give it back for the moment, until she knew where she would be living! Although on face value it seems obvious that the people in these communities live in tents which by definition insinuate a transient existence, it must be noted that many of the communities have been set up for years. In the case of Drum, it had been there for around 4 years; for others it could be up to 20 years!

Dismantling their houses and bundling up the materials to reconstruct somewhere else! Notice the solar panel in the man's hand

 The Drum community packing up their houses and all of their belongings

Community banded together to get everyone moved

Where to next?

On the positive side, we visited quite a few of our demo users that had had success first time with the cookstoves! They were thrilled at the lack of smoke, the lack of air blowing needed and the strength of the flame which resulted in quicker cooking times. The other Pollinators had similar experiences of some customers taking to it like fish to water, and others needing more convincing.

It was really satisfying, after having been in a tent where a traditional cookstove was used (and it being very suffocating due to the smoke), to then go back to that tent after the family had cooked with our cookstove and not feel suffocated or have red eyes or cough etc!! And that was just us in those tents for a few minutes, imagine the difference for the lady who uses it every day!!

It will be interesting to see at the end of the pilot phase if the cookstove will become a staple product for Pollinate Energy!