SCI News Archive

December 2011

• Support Solar Cookers International and give a gift that makes a lasting impression

  Help the two million people a year who die from indoor smoke.

October 2011

• UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's remarks on sustainable energy:

  "One person in five lacks access to modern energy; three billion people rely on wood, coal, charcoal or dung for cooking and heating." Read more....

• Help SCI by supporting our two new projects in Kisumu, Kenya.

  Read more....

• The October 2011 issue Solar Cooker Review is now available

  Read the newsletter online.

• US volunteers carry heavy bundles of firewood 136 miles (219 km) to show solidarity with world's poor

  A brave group set out on October 4th from sunny San Diego, California on an eleven-day trek to Los Angeles to do what no other group has done before them: carry massive 40-60 pound bundles of wood on their backs and take a grueling journey in honor of, and to bring awareness to, the hundreds of millions of women in this world that cook every meal over an open fire. Read more...

August 2011

• The Spendid Table interviews SCI Board Member Patricia McArdle

  Listen to Patricia discussing solar cooking in Afghanistan.

June 2011

• SCI helps Light Gives Heat provide solar cookers Ugandan women

  Light Gives Heat (LGH) reports:"We have given up any notions that we can bring about health simply by stumbling upon it in the same way that we stumbled upon destruction. There must be changes in the way that we think and live. To bring about these changes we teamed up with Solar Cookers International (SCI). With the help of SCI we are enabling the SUUBI and EPOH artisans to cook their food and boil their water with the free power of the sun. This reduces the emissions of charcoal that the women would normally use, benefiting the women monetarily and environmentally. One artisan reported that she spends $5 a week on charcoal. With the help of LGH and SCI, she can make a one-time purchase of a solar cooker for about $5, and save on the weekly expense of charcoal." Read more...

• Sign up for electronic communication with SCI

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• Voice of America interviews Patricia McArdle about her novel Farishta.

  Solar Cookers International Board Member Patricia McArdle discusses her award-winning novel in which solar cooking in Afghanistan is featured. Audio available here.

• SCI is now an official Partner in the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.

  We are delighted to be working with the Global Alliance on its goal of enabling 100 million households to adopt clean and efficient cooking solutions. Read more...

• Make a donation to SCI in your father's name this Father's Day.

  This Father’s Day (June 19th), give your dad the gift of actively participating in solving a global problem. Make a donation to Solar Cookers International in your father’s honor, and we will send him a card on your behalf. Donate here...

• Listen to NPR’s Scott Simon interview SCI Board Member Patricia Mcardle on Weekend Edition. Audio available on this page at the NPR website.

  The newly released novel Farishta, by SCI Board Member Patricia Mcardle, tells the compelling story of diplomat Angela Morgan. Stationed at a remote British Army outpost in northern Afghanistan, Angela becomes frustrated at her inability to contribution to the country’s reconstruction. Traveling to remote areas with patrols, she notices the number of children pulling up bushes by the root for their mothers to use as cooking fuel. She then remembers building a solar cooker when she was young, and begins to spread solar cookers throughout the remainder of her time in Afghanistan. Slipping away disguised in a burka, Angela works to teach women and men how to cook with the power of the sun, and in so doing, becomes their farishta, or "angel," and discovers a new purpose for her life. Farishta, draws on author Patricia Mcardle’s experience as a diplomat in Afghanistan and her commitment to solar cooking. The importance and practicality of solar cooking is woven into the novel as Angela shares it with the local population. You can purchase Farishta at your local bookstore or online. You can also listen to an interview Patricia Mcardle did with CBS News here.

• Event: Fresno Chile Festival (Saturday, June 18, 2011):

  Solar Cookers International urges Fresno-area solar cooking supporters to attend the Fresno Chile Festival at the Fulton Mall where the city of Fresno will celebrate Fresno Chile, local art, and solar living. Central Valley Solar Cookers, the organizer of the event credits Solar Cookers International for encouragement to keep the momentum for solar cooking going. These events help spread the word of the importance of solar cooking, and the reality that solar cooking is part of the solution to addressing the problems created by half the world's population cooking over open fires. Go to our page on indoor air pollution to learn more about the realities facing women and girls around the world who regularly inhale smoke from bending over these fires. The problem is serious. The people are real. The solution is clear.

May 2011

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Julia Roberts get it!

  Hillary Clinton and Julia Roberts, the new Global Ambassador for the Alliance for Clean Cookstoves know that some 3 billion people cook their dailly food over smokey fires. Almost 2 million people each year, primarily women and children die as a result. Solar cooking is a critical part of solving the problem. Solar Cookers International does not want to miss the opportunity to be part of the solution. As our fiscal year ends, we ask that you show your support by making a donation to Solar Cookers International. Read more...)

• Why the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves must adopt Integrated Cooking

  Integrated cooking – a mix of fuel-efficient woodstoves, solar cookers, and heat-retention – provides the key to meeting the goals of the Global Alliance. Read more...

• SCI congratulates Jewish World Watch on the 5th Anniversary of their Solar Cooker Project

  The Solar Cooker Project has helped 90,000 Darfuri refugees in four camps in Chad. They are currently expanding to include another camp! Because of the work of JWW and their partner organizations ChadSolaire and CORD, thousands of women are able to cook for their families safely, eliminating the need to search for firewood and risk attack or rape. Girls are able to attend school, and money does not need to be spent on fuel. Women are building an economic future by manufacturing the solar cookers. Solar cooking is changing the lives of these families! The Solar Cooker Project is an excellent example of how solar cookers effectively address the negative impacts that come from cooking over an open fire with firewood. Solar cooking has zero emissions and is a free and available source of power. Thousands of women in Chad demonstrate the power of the sun in cooking food for their families every day. Thank you Jewish World Watch for your on-going dedication to improving the lives of people and the environment through the use of solar cooking. Together we can help JWW meet their ultimate goal; to provide 285,000 refugees in 12 camps in Chad with a solar cooker. SCI encourages and appreciates your support of this project!

• "We have got to do something about this!" - Hillary Clinton

  Ryan Lizza writes in the New Yorker Magazine: "Not long ago, I met with Kris Balderston, the State Department’s representative for global partnerships. He started working with Clinton ten years ago, when he guided her through the politics of upstate New York during her Senate race. Now he works on an array of entrepreneurial projects that complement traditional diplomacy. He talked excitedly about working with Vietnamese-Americans to build stronger ties to Vietnam and about distributing vaccines in partnership with Coca-Cola. He pointed to a bookcase stocked with devices that looked like a cross between a lantern and a paint bucket. These were advanced cookstoves. “This is a problem that the Secretary saw when she was First Lady,” Balderston said, explaining how lethal cooking smoke can be. “One half of the world cooks in open fires. Two million people die a year from it—that’s more than malaria and tuberculosis combined, and nearly as much as H.I.V.” On a trip to Congo in 2009, Clinton met a woman in a refugee camp who had been raped in the jungle on the outskirts of the camp while gathering wood for her stove. Telling the story at the State Department, Clinton was angrier than Balderston had ever seen her. “We have got to do something about this,” she said. Balderston spends much of his time trying to build a market for inexpensive, clean-burning cookstoves in the developing world." Read more...

April 2011

• Sign up for electronic communication with SCI

  Thank you for helping make Solar Cookers International a Lean Green Solar Machine. Sign up to receive Solar Cooker Review as well as all other communications from SCI by email.

• April 2011 issue of Solar Cooker Review is now online.

  Read the latest issue of SCI's newsletter.

February 2011

• The Impact of Rising Food Prices

  Across the world, food stocks are down in part because of unfavorable weather, ranging from drought to floods in various parts of the world. The demand for rice and other grains, meanwhile, has been growing, especially in big developing countries like China. This situation has added to the struggle for families trying to survive, and has helped to fuel protests in the Mideast. With food costs rising in developing nations, there is less money for the population to buy needed fuel, primarily charcoal, for cooking. Introducing solar cooking to more areas is an important way for residents to offset the higher price of food staples. Read more...

January 2011

• United Nations reception a success!

  The Solar Cooking Exhibition and Reception held at the U.N. during the CoNGO consultation was a smashing success! Representatives from non-governmental organizations and interested supporters attended the three-hour, open-house event. The concept of solar cooking is so important, that representatives from Nigeria, the Middle East, Pakistan, Bagladesh, and Somalia made it through freezing, blowing rain to attend the exhibition. A wide variety of solar cookers were on display with informational material accompanying the cookers. Video loops played throughout the evening showing real people around the world cooking with the sun and training others to do so. There was a real urgency at the exhibition that the message of solar cooking be strong, unified, and be present in global discussions of development and progress for people around the world.
  

• Haiti: One Year Later

  Haiti continues to benefit from solar cooking. SCI and International Child Care Ministries are working to expand the project in the schools around Port Au Prince to integrate solar cooking into the 5th grade science curriculum. The goal is that each student will receive a CooKit to use each day in preparing and cooking their lunch while learning about environmental science. Training and certification of teachers continues, as do SCI’s efforts to secure funding to provide 2000 more CooKits for this school project. With your help, we will achieve this goal! SCI thanks you for your ongoing support for solar cooking in Haiti. More...

• SCI welcomes AmyJo Mattheis as Executive Director

  Having lived as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana, and having worked in Palestine and Nicaragua, AmyJo Mattheis understands the problem of fuel scarcity and the health effects of smoke from cooking fires. AmyJo will use this knowledge along with her extensive management experience of non-profits to continue and to expand SCI's work to bring the promise of solar cooking to communities worldwide. Read more...

• Clean Currents annual holiday giving campaign a success

  Clean Currents announced that they raised enough to supply 100 CooKits to Haiti through its holiday giving campaign.