Chepkurbet Jiko Stove Project Continues (Part 3)

Hello readers and friends,

I began telling you about the Jiko Stove Project awhile back. If you would like to read more please look here and here.

You will remember perhaps that my friend Pastor Jonah hired two local women, Emily and Regina to make the jiko stoves. These women are so passionate about making the stoves and they do it with a lot of joy and gusto. They have to be strong to make these stoves but they are also very creative and I am so pleased and happy that they have been able to help us out in making this project come to life. 

Emily and Regina are working very hard on behalf of all the women in the villages.  They have worked so tirelessly and they have worked with gusto despite not being supervised. They have also taken it upon themselves to teach the other women how to care for these stoves. It is a true pleasure to have them working on this project and to see them take on the making of the stoves as their own project. The widow woman in the top photo wearing the blue t-shirt is Mrs. Irene Songony, the recipient of this particular stove.

Here you see the two ladies pounding the soil that will ultimately become the new stove.

Here the ladies are smoothing out what will become the bottom end of the new stove.

Here is a look at one of the new stoves. See how the ladies have made some decorative edges all around. they have also created shelves at the back of the stove.

A clearer view of the stove.

Here is a close up of the stove. You can see the spaces for the firewood and also see that the stove top has two holes for cooking pots. Both holes need to be covered even if you are only using one. Chances are you need two pots to boil water. One for tea and one for cooking the food.

The Jiko Stove project continues. We have a few stoves to make in a handful of villages but most of them will be made in Chepkurbet. I pray these stoves would be a wonderful blessing to the women and their families.  I praise God we can help widows through this project. May God abundantly bless them and help all the widows we are helping so that their life can be as God intended for them.  I hope to share some final pictures with you soon and a few words about the impact of this project on the husbands, in my next and final instalment in this series on the Jiko Stove Project.

I hope you are enjoying this project as much as I've enjoyed sharing about it. Please pray for these women who are building the stoves. Pray that they would be blessed beyond measure and that the recipients of the stoves will also feel a great blessing from God.

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world. James 1:27

Chepkurbet Jiko Project Comes to Life - Pt. 2

(Continued from part 1 which you can read here).

I tried different ways to raise funds for the Jiko Stoves Project in Kenya. First, I tried selling photos taken in Kenya. I opened an Etsy shop. I only sold one photo but I will try again later as I feel this can still be successful. I also tried to sell home made crosses on commission. You can read here about that effort. The crosses were wonderful and I did sell some. However since they aren't mine I returned the remainder to the craftsman. I used the funds raised to pay for school needs instead of jiko stoves.

From time to time I thought of other alternatives for how to bring about energy efficiencies and I did find a fireless cooker. Read about it here.  I think fireless cookers are a good thing and they are much less expensive than putting in a full stove and jiko pot.  I considered going this route instead of putting into a full stove and buying jiko but 28 households in the village were waiting to have jiko stoves like the first set of 11 women.  I also felt that a proper stove and pot would be a better investment over the long term in helping improve the lives of these village women and children.

I scour the internet a lot.  One day through Simon, one of my blogging contacts, I was encouraged to have hope that I could  really find an answer to the dilemma of the jiko stove needs.  Simon suggested I could get a mold (cast) made and the villagers could build their own stoves.  Simon also kindly provided me some information as to where to get the building plans. The challenge then became how to find the carpenter, how much to pay him and how to get the actual stoves built in the village huts because this process requires taking the mold from house to house and the houses are rather far apart.

I discussed it with my Pastor friend, Pastor Jonah and he agreed to find a carpenter. After a few weeks of  communicating with my Kenyan friend about the various ins and outs of the project and working on and tweaking the budget, I gave the "green" light to Pastor Jonah to look for a carpenter.  This wasn't as simple as it sounds. Pastor Jonah had to speak to several carpenters and show them the building plans.  Some of them would not even consider trying to follow the plans for building the mold. I could in fact understand why.  When I look at the diagrams and instructions, they seem very complicated.  I imagine that some of the village carpenters might not read very well and so could not follow the instructions. I also concluded that some of them probably have a few projects they make and limit their work to those things which they know they can sell.  I am so glad we did find someone who would take on the challenge!  He is obviously someone who is a bit more adventurous and willing to take on new things.

The first attempt at building the mold was a little rusty in that the lines of the wood were crooked.

First attempt was a little crooked

After the carpenters adjustments, the mold looks beautiful!

Two days later we had this wonderfully finished mold to make the stoves.

The next step was to get someone to make the stoves. My friend went ahead and hired two enthusiastic women in the village who are passionate about making the stoves.

Come back again soon and see the work they have accomplished. ....to be continued