In rural Uganda, as in many impoverished communities, women bear the brunt of domestic duties. Inside small homes, huts, and shacks they breathe polluted air from biomass-burning stoves. Outside, women and girls spend as many as eight hours walking to collect water and firewood. In a drought, they may walk farther. As the primary agricultural producers in many parts of the world, women work harder and longer to provide for their families in degraded environments and when weather patterns change. In this way, a woman’s quality of life is deeply connected to the environment.
Eco Development Foundation (ECODEF) is a grassroots organization in Uganda. With a small grant, the group led a project to enhance climate change adaptation and resilience among women in rural villages.
Over the duration of the funding, ECODEF’s objectives were:
- To raise awareness on impacts of climate change, adaptation and resilience strategies through a grassroots communications approach
- To transfer energy and agro-forestry technologies for improved indoor air quality and food security
- To promote good governance in natural resource management
To accomplish these goals, the organization held training workshops, planted trees, established vegetable gardens, and helped implement innovative stove technologies. Each of these activities was aimed at increasing the uptake of and limiting the production of carbon dioxide. In this way, ECODEF aimed to improve the surrounding environment and the day-to-day of local women.
Seeding Change through Connecting
ECODEF’s trainings centered on the causes of climate change, how communities can adapt, and how impacts of these changes could be overcome. Over the course of a year, more than 122 women and girls were trained on climate change adaptation and mitigation.
As primary caregivers and farm laborers in their communities, the women had already felt the effects of climate change and could easily associate this environmental shift with crop losses and water scarcity during dry periods. As a result, women were especially valuable agents of change in their towns and villages. They would regularly gather after daily chores to learn and share knowledge about food security, energy, and raising household incomes through savings. In this way, anything that they learned at the trainings was shared with and disseminated among a much larger population.
The Difference of a New Technology
Energy conservation is a major strategy in mitigating climate change. In rural areas, biomass is a significant source of energy for domestic use; almost 100% of households depend on it for cooking and lighting. Biomass use contributes to both indoor air pollution and deforestation. Energy efficient stoves reduce biomass use and improve multiple aspects of daily life.
With support from Global Greengrants Fund, ECODEF trained women to manufacture energy efficient stoves, called Lorena stoves. Trainings also provided social marketing skills to promote these newer, safer technologies to other households. Now, five women are running businesses to manufacture and sell Lorena stoves in neighboring villages, and one woman alone has processed ten orders a month and earned an income of more than $75 per month—a significant income for a rural household in Uganda.
In addition to the economic impact that these businesses are having in communities, the new stoves also improve air quality for participants. This has positive implications on the health of women and girls, particularly young children who spend time indoors with their mothers and are the most vulnerable to environmental pollutants.
Another significant achievement towards energy conservation has been the reduction of excessive consumption of firewood.
One beneficiary told ECODEF, “Before I got the stove I would use a bundle of fuel wood every four days, but now with the Lorena stove it can last me two weeks!”
The stoves ECODEF installed have reduced fuel wood consumption by over 55% in most recipient households. As a result, deforestation has slowed, carbon emissions have gone down, and women can put less time and energy toward firewood collection.
One Project with Many Benefits
There is no question that the collective efforts of ECODEF have had a positive impact on these communities. By improving the environment, they have directly improved the wellbeing of hundreds of women and girls, not to mention that of their husbands, fathers, and brothers.
By introducing new stoves, local deforestation has diminished, air quality has improved, and violence has decreased as women and girls spend less time traveling to collect fuel.
Due to the trainings, bank accounts have been opened, loans applied for, and household savings have increased.
As a result of the vegetable gardens, vitamin intake has improved, household expenditure on food as gone down, and time and resources toward securing food and fuel have been saved.
The benefits are interconnected and profound, and we couldn’t be more proud to have supported this work.