Uganda – PESITHO

Updates on Pesitho’s ECOCA Cooperative in Uganda

admin — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 14:07:42 +0000

In February 2021, the Pesitho team travelled to Northern Uganda, where our first local cooperative is situated, just outside of the Bidibidi Refugee Settlement. We have been working hard for many months to develop our cooperative, working in partnership Caritas Denmark and local partners CIDI and Caritas Uganda.

We are very excited to update you with more information on how the developments to the cooperative are coming along. Today we have updates straight from the field, Pesitho’s Director, Simon, takes us around the Cooperative building, and shows us where Marco and Nikki are busy training the local team in their new roles including sales, assembly and tracking. Our local team are members of both Bidibidi Refugee Settlement as well as the host community.

Watch Simons video updates here:

It has been crucial for Pesitho to include the local community in all phases of developing our cooperative, where we aim to improve the capacity of community members, livelihoods development, social cohesion between groups, as well as promoting local ownership to ensure a more sustainable and lasting business in providing access to clean and affordable energy for cooking.

The journey so far in developing our Cooperative has been a great experience and we are looking forward to start distributing our ECOCA solar-powered cookstoves to the communities. The ECOCA will not only provide affordable and clean access to energy for cooking, boiling water and charging electrical items like lamps and mobile phones but also functions as an alternative fuel to firewood. This means protecting the local environment reducing forestation also indoor air pollution associated with burning solid biomass (firewood and charcoal).

Read more about our work with the ECOCA here:

ECOCA Projects

Scroll through the photos to see more:

MECS-TRIID Awardee

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 07:56:02 +0000

Research on the environmental and health impacts of ECOCA families in Uganda

As an awardee of the Modern Energy Cooking Services -Technology Research Innovation for International Development (MECS-TRIID) grant funding, Pesitho worked with Aarhus University in collecting data on the environmental and health impacts of using the ECOCA solar stove for cooking compared to traditional biomass stoves.

The research took place at the Bidbidi Refugee Settlement in Uganda with recipient families of the pilot ECOCA stoves and families who solely use solid biomass for everyday cooking. The study examined both benefits and barriers of using the ECOCA stove. While studying a small sample size, the project concluded that if used exclusively the ECOCA can considerably reduce emissions while cooking. However, due to the close proximity of neighboring biomass-using households, exposure to smoke proved difficult to avoid.

The study also evidenced benefits to cooking with the ECOCA stove such as: families expressing better sleep, less pain in eyes, lungs and head due to reduction of smoke exposure as well as mental/ emotional relief due to less worries.

You can read the full report here:

MECS-TRIID Pesitho Final ReportDownload

Camp + in Uganda

admin — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 08:17:34 +0000

CARE Denmark is developing the world’s first sustainable refugee camp called Camp +

In collaboration with many other innovative organizations, Pesitho are providing our expertise in clean cooking and sustainable energy solutions. We are working together in developing resolutions to address the many everyday issues associated with cooking.

Camp + has a mission to improve the livelihood of its residents at the camp while also reducing the camps environmental impact in the local area, creating a positive climate footprint.

World Environment Day 2019 with Pesitho in Uganda

admin — Fri, 15 May 2020 14:09:30 +0000

It is here, World Environment Day! This is incredibly important day to us at Pesitho since so much of our work seeks to have a direct impact on environmental issues, including reducing deforestation and air pollution associated with burning solid biomass for cooking.

To celebrate this day, our partners from Caritas Uganda, Gloria and Judith, have been presenting the ECOCA cookstove at the Bidibidi Refugee Settlement in Northern Uganda. To demonstrate the benefits of using our smokeless cook stove they decided to cooked some boiled eggs. Taking just a few minutes to prepare the simple dish, simply requiring the press of a button, it was a great way to show how easy it is to switch cooking techniques to everyday cooking. This also gave the partners a chance to talk about what World Environment Day means, particularly reducing firewood consumptions and the impact that smoke and soot particles can have on one’s health.

Special thanks to Gloria, Judith and Caritas Uganda

Feedback from our work in Uganda with the ECOCA

admin — Fri, 15 May 2020 12:19:37 +0000

Since installing ECOCA cookstoves to 50 families at the Bidibidi Refugee Settlement, we have had some updates from Simon from Pesitho and some of our great partners at Caritas Uganda. Simon has been working hard conducting technical training with the team from Caritas, ensuring there are on the ground partners, who are from both the local community and residents of the settlement, can address any technical issues with the ECOCA.

Cooking

Many of the families who have received an ECOCA have stated that they prefer the taste of their food. Since most of the dishes cooked tend to require boiling, such as rice, beans or porridge, cooking over fire can often result in small pieces of ash falling into the pot, making the food taste very bitter. Other times there is an overwhelming taste of smoke which takes away the intended flavours of the dish.

Simon was able to take part in one of the dish creation activities, where our Caritas partners test out different dishes cooked on the ECOCA. This time it was an omelette.

The pilot ECOCA has two heat options: low and high. Using high is for cooking meals like beans and rice. Low is for reheating meals since most families tend to cook a large meal at lunch time and reheat the food for their meal in the evening.

To make an omelette, simply select high. Add some oil followed by eggs and let the omelette cook. Place the lid on the pot to allow the food to cook faster.

Firewood

Although it is still early stages, many of the ECOCA households have already commented on reducing their firewood consumption. This has not only reduced costs for many families, but also the time spent for on collecting firewood when purchasing is not an option – an arduous task than can take between 2-6 hours.

ECOCA Lamp

Having the LED lamps not only make indoor cooking late at night possible with the lamp being shared between 2 rooms, but also household chores, homework sessions, reading time ( 7/15 families mentioned their home has become a study home for neighbouring children), going to latrines late at night and also having more time for children to stay up and play. Families have said their home is now ‘full of light’ and that many ‘feel more secure’ now with their lamps!

Pesitho installs the first 50 ECOCAs in Uganda

admin — Thu, 07 May 2020 15:03:30 +0000

This week we are celebrating the first ever installations of our ECOCA solar powered cookstove at the Bidibidi refugee Settlement in Uganda. It has been months of planning and hard work but we are so happy that the day has finally arrived. Simon, our COO has been working with Caritas Denmark and Caritas Uganda to identify 50 households who will be receiving the ECOCA. Each family will receive person training on all the cooking and additional, ensuring that the families feel confident to use their new cookstove every day.

We have included additional features in the cookstove, including a USB port that allows mobile phone and small appliance charging. The ECOCA also comes with two lamps, one that can be used for bringing light into the home – great for late night homework sessions and the other for more mobile use like walking to latrines at night. These families will now have access to a clean and sustainable source of electricity that provides 2 cooked meals a day for their families (most families tend to cook twice a day, cooking larger quantities at lunch to consume later for supper). We thank everyone for supporting our work so far!