Hello everyone, My name is Abigail Afewerk and I am a guest writer on the blog today and a student attending the International School of Uganda (ISU). Throughout the past few days I have had the pleasure of shadowing Virginia Echavarria, the managing director here at Simoshi Limited as part of my work experience program for school.

During my time with Simoshi, I have had the pleasure of visiting a few of the schools currently under Simoshi’s “Institutional Improved Cook Stoves for Schools and Institutions in Uganda'' program, as well as some schools not under the program. I have witnessed the difference between the use of traditional three-stone fires and the improved cookstoves in local schools firsthand. After observing how Simoshi interacts with the schools I have come to realize that not only does Simoshi cares about the benefits their stoves reap on the environment and planet as a whole. They also care deeply about their clients and the cooks who usually have to spend hours on end in a kitchen filled to the brim with smoke. 

One of the first schools we went to visit was St. Paul Primary School in GGaba. This school is under the program and has 4 improved cookstoves in their kitchen. They had two lovely cooks who were in the process of cooking lunch for the 734 children currently attending the school. They looked perfectly comfortable in the kitchen which was safe and smoke-free thanks to the improved stoves, In fact one of the cooks had her baby girl sleeping in a small room inside the kitchen. The fact that she felt comfortable enough to allow her baby to sleep in the room while cooking speaks volumes about how comfortable she felt.

We were visiting the school to check on the stoves and see if they needed any repairs. I was surprised to learn that Simoshi provided free repairs for all the stoves they installed. I later learned that they are able to do this with the help of carbon credits. They earn one carbon credit per ton of carbon dioxide not released into the atmosphere because of their stoves, 1 carbon credit is equivalent to 1 ton of carbon dioxide. As previously mentioned, St Paul is a school that cooks for 734 students and generates an average of 100 carbon credits per year from the f carbon dioxide that the school hasn’t released into the atmosphere as a result of their new and improved energy-efficient cookstoves. This school has been under the program since 2016 meaning it has generated 600 carbon credits for Simoshi as of today!

Simoshi sells these carbon credits (currently at a price of 31 dollars per carbon credit) to companies or people who are looking to offset their own carbon footprint or that of their company. They use the profits they make from selling these carbon credits to help manufacture as well as maintain their stoves. This is how they are able to offer free repairs to the schools currently using their stoves. The whole concept is truly fascinating and benefits Simoshi as a company as well as all the schools under their program. 

In contrast to this I also recall visiting a school more recently while shadowing Ms. Echavarria as she oversaw the delivery and installation of some improved stoves in the kitchen of Rines Secondary School. Rines is a boarding school that houses 1136 students. Not only is the student population of this school significantly larger than that of St Paul, it is also a boarding school meaning that they have to provide breakfast and dinner along with lunch for all their students.

When we entered the kitchen to select a suitable position for the stoves I was immediately overwhelmed by the amount of smoke. After only ten minutes in the kitchen, the stinging in my eyes became unbearable and I left the kitchen as a result of all the smoke. Only ten minutes in and it was too much for me, I can only imagine what the cooks have to go through every day. The difference between the kitchens and staff in schools under the program compared to those that aren’t is truly exceptional. 

My time here at Simoshi has been an eye-opening experience that has really put so much into perspective for me. And I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to witness Simoshi’s work firsthand.