Smokeless Village

TIDE has been pioneering SMOKELESS VILLAGE program in various parts of Karnataka through our Sarala Stove and women stove builders. These are ideally suited for CSR programs where the community can be chosen from the area of operation of the corporate or their own labour community.

Model:

TIDE has identified villages in Karnakata where primary medium for cooking are biomass or wood burning stoves. We are also open to consider villages in other parts of the country recommended by grass root agencies from that area.

Once identified, TIDE conducts a reconnaissance study to assess the baseline situation, understand cooking habits and to take buy-in from the community through awareness sessions. Once there is buy-in by the community, TIDE decides on either of the 2 models :

a)Training of local women /men in Sarala stove construction who in turn will construct stoves for the entire community.

b)Construction of stoves by other trained women stove builders.

TIDE recommends former approach to ensure that there is local capacity to address any issues later. However for small population of village, less than 100 houses or cluster of small villages, the latter approach can be adopted.

If local community has to be trained, TIDE identifies women who show inclination to get trained for stove construction and who have the potential. With our experience, we have developed criteria for short-listing such women. A training program is then scheduled at the village and stoves are constructed at site as part of the training program. Then a target is given for each of the trained stove builder to complete. TIDE monitors the construction and also carries out post construction visit to ensure that there is acceptance and that stoves are performing as per expectation.

The village is then given the title ’SMOKELESS VILLAGE’ once 80% of its population shifts to smokeless stoves.

Indicative costs:

TIDE has adopted a part funding – part self financing option for the program; the house getting the stove gives materials like mud, bricks and tiles and also assists the stove builder as a labour. The metal grill, door frame and chimney are typically donated as are the moulds used for constructing the stove.

Total cost of the program including training of local community and monitoring by TIDE would range between Rs 2000-2500 per stove, depending on location of the place and availability of the material. This costing includes fee for stove builder, TIDE costs for training, training material, moulds and logistics.

If pre trained stove builders are used for the program, it would cost about Rs 1000 per stove, with additional costs on logistics including travel and boarding costs of the stove builders.

Timeline:

A trained stove builder can construct 3-5 two pan stoves per day, depending on the distance she needs to travel. Five stove builders can do 100 stoves in a week.

Please get in touch with us at [email protected] if you are interested in sponsoring or in becoming a SMOKELESS VILLAGE.