Fall 2015 Newsletter

December 9, 2015 Greg Hitchcock

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Clean Cookstove, Newsletter, Uncategorized

As the year comes to a close, and a new holiday season begins, we at Water for Humans want to update you on our important achievements in 2015 and say THANK YOU! Our achievements were possible only because of generous donors like you, who help us bring clean water technologies to indigenous rainforest communities in Oaxaca and Chiapas.

OUR GEN2 COOKSTOVE PROJECT –
IMPROVING, EXPANDING, AND SERVING NEIGHBORING COMMUNITIES
New-Stove-in-Oaxaca

Since 2012, we have been working to build clean cookstoves in the Mazateca region in the mountains of northeastern Oaxaca, Mexico, where over one hundred indigenous communities are nestled in the coffee-growing region of a remote rainforest. Our cookstoves help curtail deforestation and maintain freshwater ecosystems in rainforests that play a vital role in stabilizing the Earth’s climate and are home to 1.6 million people who rely on them for their livelihood.

This year, we made great strides towards improving our first generation La Mazateca cookstoves, which have already been installed by 89 families in four communities in Oaxaca, Mexico, directly benefiting 600 individuals.

Our engineers crafted 3-D computer aided designs for a second generation stove (Gen2) that improves on our previous design by including a more versatile combustion chamber and options for an oven, a room heater and a water heater.
To aid in Gen2’s development, our local partners at The Hunger Project – Mexico are using questionnaires and interviews to analyze additional stove improvement possibilities.
And, we secured a grant to conduct onsite field testing of our stoves in Mexico with GIRA (Grupo Interdisciplinario de tecnologia Rural Aprolada).

In the upcoming year, we plan for our improved second generation (Gen2) La Mazateca cookstove to benefit families in Chiapas, Mexico, and to reach a greater number of indigenous households in Oaxaca.

To achieve this, we will conduct certification testing of our Gen2 stove at Aprovecho (a cookstove research center in Oregon). This will be followed by design improvements and production tooling.
Once our Gen2 stove has been tested, we will travel to Oaxaca and Chiapas to hold workshops that will train new, local stove builders to construct and maintain our Gen2 cookstoves.
Working with regional professionals and community members, we will guide indigenous stove builders as they form a social venture enterprise to distribute our Gen2 stoves in a greater number of remote rainforest villages.

HOW CAN YOU JOIN US IN THE NEXT STEPS OF OUR COOKSTOVE PROJECT?

Donate

Consider making a one-time or recurring donation. Your contribution will directly benefit underserved communities in Oaxaca and Chiapas, and help us ensure they have access to safe, clean water. Drop by drop, penny by penny, we are changing lives.

You can also do your online shopping at AmazonSmile. Select Water for Humans as your charitable organization, then every eligible item earns us 0.5% of the purchase price. (Click here for more information)

Kind Regards,
Rick&Stan-Sig