Waihigo, a widowed mother of three who once struggled to make ends meet, has become a star entrepreneur, selling to local households as well as hotels and other customers. Now, with training and equipment from the Rainforest Alliance, Waihigo produces that amount in an hour-and of course, these briquettes are carbonized, smoke-free products. One of the briquette-producing entrepreneurs, Mary Waihigo Kamau, had been collecting charcoal dust at the market to make briquettes by hand-a process that allowed her to produce only about 60 kg per month. Partner organizations Living Earth and EnSo Impact have been instrumental in implementing this exciting work. Because the landscape is so vast, about 50 Last Mile Entrepreneurs (LMEs) have received training and are now selling these renewable energy products in more remote areas. Two of these HECs also produce the smoke-free briquettes, and two more briquette-producing HECs are in the pipeline. By mid-2021, the initiative aims to improve incomes, reduce carbon emissions, and create healthier homes for 50,000 tea families.Īs part of this effort, seven Household Energy Centers (HECs), run by local entrepreneurs who have received training from the Rainforest Alliance, sell a range of renewable-energy products, from smoke-free briquettes to cookstoves to solar lighting. W’Njema’s household is just one of more than 5,000 who have benefitted from this far-reaching initiative to promote renewable energy in Kenya’s tea landscapes-and that’s just the beginning. “The briquettes are cheap, economical, and they don’t create smoke which is very damaging to our health,” W’Njema said. In addition to the clear health benefits, the biomass briquettes are much cheaper: Switching to briquettes from firewood, for example, cuts fuel costs by more than a third. She now cooks with smoke-free, carbonized briquettes, which are made from waste materials like saw dust and corn husks. But these fuels emit toxic fumes that put her and her family’s health in jeopardy: Smoke from charcoal and firewood contributes to 16,600 deaths in this country each year, as well as to a range of illnesses that disproportionately affect women and children, who tend to spend more time in the home.īut now, thanks to an exciting initiative led by the Rainforest Alliance (with support from the IKEA Foundation), W’Njema and her family are no longer breathing in harmful smoke. Until recently, Purity W’Njema used firewood and charcoal to power her stove and heat her home in rural Kenya.
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