The Patsari Stove Project (18 minutes)

Every day, two billion people eat food cooked over an open fire burning in their homes. These open fires fill their kitchens with wood smoke.

This exposure to smoke causes health problems from indoor air pollution, social problems because women are isolated in the smoky kitchen where no one else wants to be, and environmental problems because these inefficient open fires need a lot of fuel wood that has to be scavenged from shrinking forests.

Simple cook stoves burn wood in an enclosed chamber and vent the smoke outdoors through a chimney. These stoves eliminate the health and social problems caused by indoor smoke. They reduce the need for fuel wood because they are much more efficient than an open fire.

The Patsari Project designed the Patsari cookstove stove and placed 3,500 stoves in rural Mexico. The project worked carefully with local women to understand their needs and make sure they understood how to use the stoves after they were installed in homes. The rate of adoption of these Patsari stoves is perhaps the highest cookstove adoption rate in the world.