Project to promote and diffuse economic cookers to the Circle of Bandiagara (Mali), 2010

The first part of this project, the construction and free distribution of 120 economic cookers to 60 schools with a school canteen has been concluded satisfactory in the middle of December 2010. The schools that received the cookers - two cookers per school - in fact the school's cooks, have received the donation with a lot of satisfaction. The use of these cookers means a reduction of 50% or more of the wood needed and it means an enormous gain of time to cook the food.

School cooks using one of the cookers.

This year we made a donation of cookers to schools which have a school canteen subsidized by the state. We have to bear in mind that in het Circle of Bandiagara there are a lot more schools that get this kind of subsidies from other organizations (like Caritas) and that in these schools cooking goes on in the traditional way with three stones. In a second phase of the project and after having received a list of these schools from our counterpart AGVF, we shall be able to consider the possibility to give economic cookers to these schools.

Local construction of the cookers

At the end of December 2010 the second part of the project has started: the construction, spreading and selling of 1000 economic cookers at subsidized prices at the Circle of Bandiagara. Two blacksmiths and a promotion-person have had the formation to do their work. Viewing the area and the first presentation/spreading/selling sessions it was clear that there is a great interest among the population for this kind of cookers. This project will take a year and the AGVF counterpart will keep us informed about the sales every three months. With the obtained profits the AGVF will distribute more cookers.

The first women buying cookers at a subsidized price and a view of our counterpart in Bandiagara.