We are seeking support to help halt the preventable deaths of some 8,500 people in Nepal, predominantly women and children, who die each year from the effects of inefficient and polluting cookstoves. Clean Energy for Improved Health (CEIH), will improve the health of 4,728 people in four extremely poor, off-grid communities in Surkhet District by the end of 2020, at a cost of £55,096, or £11 per person reached, circa sixty pence over the technology’s twenty-year life-span

Traditional stoves of the kind used by Gita, release hazardous pollutants such as carbon monoxide, particulate matter and nitrous oxide. They cause burns and put millions of people – particularly women and children – at risk of severe health problems. The burning of solid fuels, such as wood, charcoal and animal dung, is a significant and deadly contributor to GHG emissions.

This project will equip local health posts with solar power and electrical equipment for lighting, fans, nebulisers and refrigeration for medicines and vaccines. It will also build the capacity of local artisans to construct and roll-out the use of improved, energy efficient cookstoves, generating demand across the communities for cleaner cookstoves and supporting those who are least able to purchase them with a subsidy so that they are not excluded from the project’s benefits. The project will use two cookstove designs: a clay and sand-based design that uses local materials and which can be manufactured locally with only modest initial training of local artisans; and metal Rocket Stoves, which are again manufactured locally, using local metalsmiths. These types of stove are more fuel efficient than traditional cookstoves, can be built and maintained locally, at low cost.

Clean Energy for Improved Health (CEIH), will improve the health of 4,728 people in four extremely poor, off-grid communities in Surkhet District by the end of 2020