Each year more
than 1.5 million
people, mostly
women and
children, die
from the indoor
air pollution
generated by
cooking with
solid fuels in
poorly ventilated
homes. That’s
more than the
number who die
from malaria.

World Health
Organization
(2006)

Gaia Association Wins Energy Globe Award
 
March 2009. The International Jury of the Energy Globe World Awards has judged the Gaia Association of Ethiopia national winner for Ethiopia for 2008 with its project “Improving Indoor Air Quality by Installing Ethanol Fuelled Cooking Stoves in UNHCR Teferiber Refugee Camp, Eastern Ethiopia.” This project was one of 769 projects from 111 nations. Presentation of the award is planned prior to the international television gala for the Energy Globe World Awards on April 14 in the Czech Republic.

Welcome to Project Gaia
Project Gaia is part of a global initiative developing and promoting clean-cooking alcohol stoves and fuels for disadvantaged and marginalized people who suffer poor health and mortality from cooking over polluting fires.

Did you know?
More than three billion people cook over smoky stoves. Each year, more than 1.5 million people die from lung diseases as a result. Because alcohol burns cleanly and without smoke, alcohol fuel and stoves can prevent these deaths. Project Gaia is bringing this reality to poor communities in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Brazil.

Gathering wood is dangerous for women and older children because they are often assaulted, especially in conflict zones. To make women and children safe, alcohol fuels can be provided to refugees just as food is. Alcohol fuels are safe. They do not explode, and if spilled, they are unlikely to catch fire. Our work in Ethiopia has shown that women value the safety of the alcohol-fueled stove as much as they value the clean kitchens that these stoves make possible.

Most fossil fuels are too expensive for poor people to buy. Alcohol fuels can be made locally at a price that many low-income communities can afford. Such fuel production also provides local employment. Unlike expensive imports, this fuel helps the country’s economy because it is a local product.

Where wood is already in short supply, gathering leads to desertification. The alcohol fuels used in this project are made from wastes (such as sugar cane residues) that would otherwise be environmentally damaging, either deoxygenating the rivers or being burned wastefully on the fields.

If people are sick, they cannot work. Alcohol stoves and fuel not only prevent smoke-related lung disease, they are also less likely to cause burns to children. The stoves are stable, and the fuel is safely stored in an unspillable fuel tank. Women and children are healthier, so women can work and children can attend school.

Read more about Project Gaia.
Read the latest news from Project Gaia.
View a short film about the daily life of women in an Ethiopian
refugee camp. Learn how you can help a family in need.

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