WFP – PESITHO

Malawi Pilot – 230 ECOCA’s with WFP

Sarah Feldes — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 08:16:55 +0000

230 ECOCA cooking units are waiting to be distributed to refugees in Malawi

The 1st of June 230 ECOCA solar cookstove units arrived to a Warehouse in Malawi, where they are tested, installed and soon to be delivered to refugees in two different locations in the country.

The contact was established through World Food Program and their team in Malawi, who PESITHO has perviously been working with on their Innovation accelerator program in Burundi. Based on this partnership new contacts emerged and we were ready to send 230 stoves to Malawi.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and safety restrictions the team was not yet able to distribute the cooking units to the families in the refugee camps yet. However, the team is looking to get the stoves out to beneficiaries as soon as possible.

The families have been pre-selecteed through he WFP team, based on vulnerability (therefore primarily single-mother households, as women mainly take up cooking for the family and are mostly not able to work besides taking care of children and household as a single-parent) and areas where food shortages are the most pressing.

The Malawi team reports back from pilot testing 3 ECOCA stoves in the warehouse.

As they describe; they have to test and learn about the product and its possibilities, as it is a “completely new approach”. Charging, set-up, installation and use of the solar cooking units are pre-tested before delivery to refugees in the settlements because “Installation is more than just a delivery”.

“This is a learning process, and we are still learning ourselves”- says Kevin, one of the staff at the warehouse, who works for WFP in Malawi since June. He and his colleague are the main responsible employees for the ECOCA pilot project and can already confirm a huge willingness to use and learn about the ECOCA in the refugee community.

We are happy to hear about the strong interest in our product from different places and are grateful for the many established contacts, pilot-projects, and partnerships we accomplished so far.

We are looking forward to future projects and hope to reach many more people in need in different locations.

If you would like to get in touch, feel free to contact us through the formula below!

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World Food Programme in Burundi

admin — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 17:51:52 +0000

Providing off-grid solar electric cooking to urban households in Burundi

Together with The World Food Programme (WFP), Pesitho is running a pilot in Burundi to test the willingness and affordability of Burundian families to buy ECOCA cookstoves.

Starting in late 2019, 7 ECOCA cookstoves were distributed to 7 families as a trial. Pesitho was able to collect feedback and upgraded its cookstoves as per users’ preferences, providing the 7 families with a new model in early 2020.

With the new model of ECOCAs, users have shown higher satisfaction and Pesitho is now testing which payment modality would work best for its customers in Burundi as it plans to expand to more families in Burundi

Find out more about the project here

You can read about the results here:

Results Download

Pesitho in Burundi with World Food Programme

admin — Fri, 15 May 2020 12:51:49 +0000

Since taking part in the Innovation Accelerator with World Food Programme, Thorben from Pesitho visited the WFP officers in Burundi this May to establish our work together. Pesitho and WFP will be conducting a ‘willingness to pay’ assessment, which helps us gauge the best ways to set up a payment system that best suits our ECOCA end users. This is an exciting project for us moving onto the next stages of our business development how we can best supply a clean and affordable solution to the cooking needs of vulnerable people. We hope to give you some updates on our work in Burundi very soon.

Pesitho at World Food Programme Innovation Accelerator 2019

admin — Wed, 06 May 2020 15:48:02 +0000

On the 15^th of February 2019 Pesitho took part in the World Food Programme Innovation Accelerator in Munich, Germany. It was a fantastic opportunity for us to broadcast some of our goals with the ECOCA, addressing issues like the impacts of cooking with solid biomass fuel of health and the environment.

The WFP Innovation Accelerator provides support to start ups like ourselves who create solutions worldwide hunger. We were able to work for WFP staff who offer hands on support and WFP operations.

To end the week, our CEO Thorben presented live on WFPs Facebook page our work with the ECOCA. Our goal is to install 50,000 ECOCAs to support the families who rely heavily on firewood and charcoal for cooking, improving their livelihoods all around.

“At Pesitho, we have spent the last year prototyping and testing Solution-A with refugees. We know the importance of testing in the right environment with the right end users. I am happy to let you know that tomorrow morning, the first 50 ECOCAs will be arriving at the Bidibidi Settlement in Uganda where we will be installing these. We will then go onto Myanmar to install the next 50 units”- Thorben Nielsen.

Following installation, Pesitho, Caritas Denmark and students from Aarhus University will spend 3 months retrieving feedback on from the beneficiary families in order to develop the next solution.