This year has seen Simoshi finally reach targets that are a result of efforts made by a team of supportive staff, partners, family and friends who have seen us rise from the shadows. Nothing is easy for start-ups, but it is even harder in Sub-Saharan countries overwhelmed by serious problems from poverty and illiteracy, to unemployment and inadequate policy to support sustainable initiatives.

Nevertheless, our passion for a positive impact has seen the sun rise and we are excited as we enter 2020 with loads of expectations.

In November 2019 our first 8,457 certified emission reductions (CERs) were issued. These are now for sale at the UNFCCC Climate Neutral Now portal for those who want to voluntarily offset their carbon footprint.

We would like to thank all 13 buyers of 170 CERs who in the past week had supported our Project Activity and the efforts made to move schools away from using the 3-stone fires when cooking all of their daily meals. Their contribution has made a huge impact in making this possible, as we continue to hand hold the schools when making the transition to using the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS).

We installed the first IICS back in March 2016, and up to date, we are still repairing/maintaining all those IICS for free to all of our participating schools, monitoring and training their kitchen staff, ensuring the firewood reductions are achieved as when we first deployed the stoves. By changing their traditional cooking practices with the use of an IICS, an average school with 700 children reduces their firewood consumption by half, translating into 90 tons of carbon dioxide not released into the atmosphere every year.

Their voluntary action to neutralise the carbon emissions is an exemplary endeavour and on behalf of all the children and school staff would like to say Thank You for their generosity and awareness on climate change.

Happy end of the year to everyone and a better start of the new new to come.