Rocket Stove

Cooking Peace

In an effort to listen to our neighbors struggles we heard a common thread. That was the problem of having to cook with an

open fire on a deforested plateau. Women walk up to 5 miles just to fetch as much firewood as they can carry in order to cook dinner that night. Then there’s the problem of having small kids playing around these open fires which produces endless amounts of burns from falling into them. So one of our first projects was to brainstorm with our neighbors over solutions to these problems. This is what we came up with. The Rocket stove. A way to conserve up to 300% of the firewood they get from the forest and contain the fire inside, keeping kids at a safe distance. This method has been used for some time now in South America but has just recently made its way to Nomba, Mozambique. The stove is made completely out of mud and straw (two things in great abundance here) and then constructed using two pots that the family normally cooks on. The fire is started in the bottom and sucked through a chimney after first passing and heating a second pot. An absolutely brilliant way to use local resources to meet local needs!!