Thanks to BostonGal for this wonderful article on solar cookers. Here in Arizona, we talk a lot about this kind of technology, since we have 330 days of sunshine per year, and I have seen similar projects in India and parts of Asia. What strikes me in this article is the link between cooking and gathering wood and rape. It’s one of those correlations that doesn’t stand out at first; I was originally interested in solar cookers because of the environmental impact and because of health concerns (many 3rd world countries use small kerosene lamps and stoves and people asphyxiate or develop permanent lung problems if the stoves aren’t properly ventilated.) But now it seems simple to link the fact that women would have to travel far to gather wood, and that they would sometimes be alone or in small groups and thus vulnerable to soldiers and their attacks.
I have to confess that I cried a little when I read the article; sometimes making the world better seems like such a difficult task. Seeing such a difference being made with pretty minor technology and a logical mind to solve problems…well, it’s so hopeful, it makes my chest hurt a little with the hopefulness. I’ve often been accused of being a pessimist, but I like to think of myself as a realist who always thinks that salvation is possible if we just acknowledge the facts and work toward a solution. And, occasionally, I am actually proven right…
…[this project] addresses the rape, mutilation, and murder of Darfuri women – now among at least 2 million Sudanese displaced by the conflict. The aim: Supply families with solar cookers and teach women in refugee camps new cooking skills so they don’t have to burn wood.
This reduces the need for women to hunt for firewood outside the camps, where the risk of attack and rape is greater.
A recent report by the humanitarian group Refugees International identified rape as a weapon of systematic ethnic cleansing being used by Sudanese government-backed janjaweed militiamen. “The raping of Darfuri women is not sporadic or random, but is inexorably linked to the systematic destruction of their communities,” the report says.
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Two solar cookers can save a ton of wood per year, according to JWW. They free women from tending fires to do other tasks, and provide income for female refugees because the cookers are manufactured on-site. Envision foil-covered cardboard (about four feet by two feet) folded upward to direct sun’s rays on a black pot, placed in the center, and covered in a plastic bag. Millet, rice, eggs, and other ingredients are put in the pot, surrounded by the water-moistened plastic bag that provides softening condensation.
The solar cooker project is unique in the annals of global aid efforts, say international aid experts and individual fundraisers.
For one thing, the United States and humanitarian groups have declared the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan a genocide. More than 350,000 people have died. Second, the Sudanese government puts restrictions on humanitarian aid workers, making grass-roots groups and private donations, especially to those in refugee camps, more important.
“The Sudanese government is allowing the conditions in the camps to be one of their main mechanisms of genocide,” says Adam Sterling, executive director of the Sudan Divestment Task Force. “It is the type of grass-roots efforts like the solar cooker project supported by private donations that is sustaining [the refugees].”
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