Fellow Eugene Oregon Rotarian Nancy Sanford Hughes was working as a volunteer in the kitchen with the Cascade Medical Team in Solola, Guatemala in the spring of 2004. One evening, a patient came into the kitchen of the public hospital where she was working and asked to delay the meal so she could say a few words to the team.

 This beautiful, eighteen-year-old indigenous woman had fallen onto a kitchen fire at age two and lost the use of her hands.  (More than half of the world's population, or approximately THREE BILLION people cook over open fires.)

The "World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than two million premature deaths annually are caused by exposure to smoke from traditional cookstoves and open fires, with women and children the most afflicted.   The toxic emissions are blamed for low birth weights, pneumonia in young children, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, cataracts and other health problems in adults. Half of all deaths among children under age five are from acute lower respiratory infections due to indoor air pollution from household the household fires.

For sixteen years that beautiful women Nancy met prayed to use her hands. It was at that point when Nancy thought, "We need to do something to prevent burns rather than treat them." 

Nancy and her colleagues, developed a stove that is economical ($50) to build and operate, saving up to 60% of the wood used by a traditional fire, while also reducing particulate matter and carbon emissions by over 70%. Once the stove is ignited it produces almost no smoke. With the exception of the cooking surface, and the stove remains cool to the touch.

Visit www.stoveteam.org  to learn more how one Rotarian and the help of hers friends make a difference.

I have created a link to a youtube video on the web site that I recommend watching 

 
 
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