Herman Nachtergaele
DCL
Sol Suffit is working to bring its super-clean and super-simple solar cooker to developing nations, to replace the environmentally-devastating traditional cooking methods that rely on firewood and charcoal. The project started in the Djoudj National Bird Park, a World Heritage site in Senegal, and now has also set up shop in Pikine, a suburb of Dakar, across the continent in Tanzania, and is currently working to establish a presence in Cameroon with a partner organization.
Project leader Axel Vanderhaeghen said, based on "the response from everyone who gets to know the project, we're very certain it won't stop in Cameroon. Also, we found a way to introduce bigger solar cookers now, thanks to microcredits."
How it works
The first model, called the "Solar CooKit," costs about $6.77 to produce, and is still in start-up phase: 500 have been produced in Tanzania, and 1,000 in Senegal (where another 500 were initially imported). The CooKit is made from cardboard and aluminum foil: in Tanzania, the foil is made from recycled Tetra Pak materials. In Senegal, Sol Suffit couldn't find an aluminum foil supplier so for the time being imports from Holland, but it's actually surplus from a packaging plant.
If you've read about other similar-sounding initiatives, the CooKit has all the usual-suspect advantages: it helps the environment by decreasing deforestation caused by demand for firewood and charcoal, and it benefits people by eliminating the unhealthy smoke created in traditional cooking methods (which are often done indoors, with poor ventilation) and by saving people the time normally allocated to gathering firewood: which means maybe, just maybe, a boost in school attendance. But it also helps the local economy, since part of the Sol Suffit approach is to open local production facilities for the cooking kits.
It takes a bit longer to cook—two to three hours compared with one hour for traditional cooking methods, but the pot can be left alone while cooking, so it kind of evens out. (No one needs to sit over the pot and continually stir. Big plus!)
Sol Suffit is looking for more sustainable models (there is some use of plastic bags involved in cooking with the Solar Cookit), and is right now experimenting with a parabolic model (also called a turbo cooker), which reaches higher temperatures and cooks food faster. The plan, according to Vanderhaeghen, is to offer these cookers through microcredit once the testing phase is complete.
Sol Suffit hopes to expand distribution of these cookers, but is at capacity right now and is looking for partner organizations willing to assist in the effort— Vanderhaeghen said, "we mainly hope to partners who are active in other developing countries and who are willing to introduce solar cooking into their working area. We are a small organization and we have our hands full in Tanzania and Senegal. But we see how solar cookers could help in so many other places. We'd love to share our knowledge and experience with any organization anywhere."
