What if we could make every woman and girl count? – Gates Foundation

The rural women of Kitui county in Kenya had a serious problem. In this largely rural county, they traditionally cooked family meals and the staple Ugali in pots balanced on three stones over an open wood fire. They coughed and wheezed, their eyes irritated by the thick smoke that turned the walls of their unventilated kitchens black. They also spent at least two hours a day collecting firewood. Yet the energy policies adopted at the national level had not filtered down to the counties.

GROOTS Kenya, a grassroots women’s movement, organized and trained the rural women in Kitui county to measure the impact of unclean cooking in their communities, so they could figure out how bad this all was. They found that over two-thirds of families used the unclean three-stone method for everyday cooking.