By Ankit Sharma
                    University of Colorado, Boulder
             Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student

 

At the foot of the Rwenzori Mountains in western Uganda is KARUDEC -- Kagando Rural Development Center -- a thirty-four acre compound that features a hospital, a nursing school, a primary and nursery school, a new mother’s care home and various community outreach projects. During July of this year, I spent three weeks there working as an intern for AHEAD Energy, along with my friend, Andy Hemphill. Andy had just finished his first year as an undergraduate in civil engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and I had polished off my first year as a graduate student in mechanical engineering. After spending the school year philosophizing and learning about complex engineering equations and theories, I was looking forward to putting my engineering know-how into practice.

Over the course of three weeks, we tackled several different projects that ranged from overseeing the repair of industrial-sized rocket stoves to arranging a workshop to install sixty-five smaller rocket stoves in KARUDEC hospital attendees’ kitchens. The workshop was, by far, the highlight of my experience in Uganda.

As in much of Uganda, a patient’s family provides food and fuel (usually wood) and prepared meals in a shared kitchen. Cooking on a typical stove involves setting a pot on three stones and then lighting wood underneath, much like a campfire. There were about forty of these three-stone “stoves” in one attendee’s kitchen at the hospital, which made walking into this kitchen awful.  There was smoke everywhere, and often women were cooking with children near the open flames or babies wrapped around their backs.

In February of this year, representatives from the International Lifeline Fund (ILF) conducted a workshop to install forty efficient rural small-scale rocket stoves in another attendee’s kitchen at the hospital. The rocket stove is simple to build. It featured six “magical” bricks that are arranged in a hexagonal pattern, with an opening for wood. The bricks are special because they are made with a rice-husk mixture, which burns off when the bricks are heated to leave special insulative pockets.

Working with the local administration, Andy and I put together a refresher workshop for about twenty community members and hospital workers, many of whom had helped install stoves in the first kitchen. The installation was extremely fun and messy. I was flinging clay and mud around, learning the local greetings, and learning about the intricacies of rural stove-making. Over the course of a week, we worked side-by-side with people from the community - farmers, students, and hospital staff - to install fifty of these ILF rural stoves in the one attendee’s kitchen and fifteen more in a kitchen for the special ward.

It was interesting to hear the feedback from stove users. They commented on how they were saving about 40% on wood, how there were fewer smoke emissions, and how these stoves cooked faster than traditional three-stone fires. Many also commented on how they wanted these rocket-stoves in their houses as well.

The crux of the project was transforming this interest into a business for the hospital. Over our last several days with the workshop group, we molded the “magical” stove bricks using a clay-coffee husk mixture, and then created an experimental kiln to fire the bricks.  We experimented with coffee-husks in place of rice husks since many farmers grow coffee and therefore these husks are extremely cheap. A hundred kilogram bag cost about a thousand Ugandan shillings or forty cents.

Unfortunately, Andy and I had to leave before the inaugural firing of the kiln, but we got word that the firing was successful. With enthusiastic hospital staff taking over the project, I think this business has a great chance to take off. Charles, who is in charge of the hospital cleaning staff and is heading up this rocket stove venture at KARUDEC, has even talked about taking trips to the border and selling these efficient stoves in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  I like how he dreams big. Working on this project has helped reinforce the idea that sustainable, low-tech solutions can often help spur large-scale change. I look forward to seeing these stoves in the DRC.