Hard working mums deserve all our respect and recognition. Moreover, if that mum has just given birth, like Helen whom I found preparing the lunch at this secondary school in Kisaasi.
She is not only working hard with a one month old baby, but also struggling with a traditional cooking set up, using 3-stone fires to prepare all meals. Her newborn baby is just meters away from her, because childcare is not an option, and unfortunately exposing her baby and herself to the harmful smoke from the inefficient burning firewood.
Nearly 1 billion people in Africa are still cooking with such traditional methods, generation air pollution and causing several respiratory diseases. The good news: we will be soon installing 3 institutional improved cook stoves, that will not only save 50% of the firewood used, but also minimise the exposure to smoke as fumes will be pushed outside through the chimney pipe as the cooking starts happening inside a clean kitchen building.
