Rocket Stoves

Most women in rural Zimbabwe cook indoors over an open fire—with dangerous consequences.

Smoke from open fires causes serious heart and respiratory diseases as well as chronic eye conditions and even blindness.  It’s been estimated that open fires produce as much as 400 cigarettes worth of smoke every hour!  Open fires also expose women and children to high risks for burns, spread easily to thatched roofs, and because of the amount of wood they consume, promote deforestation, a growing and serious environmental threat in rural communities.

Enter the rocket stove—one of Bopoma Villages' seven Healthy Home Program interventions that equip villagers to improve their health and reduce their exposure to disease. Rocket stoves are easy to build using a variety of locally available materials at virtually no cost. Many of the benefits are experienced immediately but last a lifetime.

10 Powerful Reasons to Build a Rocket Stove

Rocket stoves:

  1. Take cooking outside
  2. produce substantially less smoke
  3. use 30% or even less wood than open fires
  4. reduce diseases caused by toxic smoke
  5. save women many hours collecting wood
  6. reduce the risk of burns
  7. reduce house fires
  8. cook twice as fast
  9. fight deforestation, and
  10. contribute to a cleaner and greener environment.

In rural Zaka, everyone who sees a rocket stove, wants one and soon builds one!

Mother and two children cooking at Rocket Stove
woman cooking
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