The Soft foot alliance has held many workshops where many women were trained how to make these stoves for themselves and to sell. Initially they were portable and only had one hot-plate but women wanted to have two-plate ones. Laurie went back to the drawing board and designed a two-plate stove and the training started again. In our area, firewood is getting so scarce that the forestry commission allows women to enter the protected area every Thursday to harvest fallen logs. They spend the whole day collecting these, in amongst elephants and lions and buffalo before carrying huge bundles out of the forest on their heads. It’s hard work, dangerous and takes a whole day out of their week. The traditional open fires they cook on use massive amounts of woods, create vast amounts of smoke especially in closed kitchens. These rocket-stoves use probably a fraction of the wood to cook the same food, relatively smoke free and are fueled on the small sticks.
At the soft foot homestead a tree has never been cut down for firewood in 7 years using these stoves, sticks from living trees are collected as part of the holistic grazing plan.
Women trained to make these have made businesses from them and have traveled as far as Victoria falls and Matobo national park to train communities there how to make them for themselves.
These stoves can be used as part of a system with solar cookers and hot boxes(insulated containers the original ‘slow cooker’) to reduce time and energy cooking.