Nepal

Adapt and prepare...

Adapt and prepare: Solar cookers and crises

Your donations to SCI help people to learn how to solar cook before disaster strikes.

SCI's expert collaborator Foundation for Sustainable Technology (FoST) works in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. These local leaders trained others how to use solar cookers, and they had an inventory of solar cookers.

As much as we all hope crises will not occur, they do.

In April 2015 the devastating Gorkha earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people and injured 22,000 in the Kathmandu Valley and beyond. Families were split apart. Buildings collapsed. Cooking fuel supplies were stopped by the border and blocked roads. Suddenly, cooking and making water safe to drink were immediate, critical needs. 

With the help of SCI donors, grassroots community collaborator FoST had already trained many women how to make and use solar cookers. So after the Gorkha quake, they could immediately cook and make water safe using solar cookers.

Solar cooking helps prepare people best -- by building our resilience before a crisis. You can help.

 

Solar cookers = 2 weeks of rice for a family ($15 USD saved each month)

This woman is one of many who benefited from solar cooker training that you made possible with your support. She lives in sunny Machheggaon, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal.

 As part of the 57% of the population in Nepal that lives on less than $2 per day, she earns about $100 US each month to support her family of five. Her biggest expenses are cooking fuel ($30 a month) and rice ($30 per month.)

Thanks to a grant funded by SCI donors, this widow and breadwinner for a family of five, was one of ten women selected for training by SCI’s partners in Kathmandu, Nepal. They all became solar cooks.

With the solar cooker, she cut her monthly fuel costs in half—saving $15 per month which she can use to buy two weeks of rice for her family.  

Imagine if every family in Nepal had had a solar cooker on April 25 when the Gorkha quake struck, like this family did. You help people adapt and prepare with solar cooking worldwide.

Your help today means more people can prepare for the environmental challenges of tomorrow. Please make a donation to SCI that creates a more resilient tomorrow.