PROGRAMS

Humanitarian Assistance

Refugees and other displaced people frequently lack access to sufficient cooking fuels and safe drinking water. In refugee camps, when fuel rations are depleted, women and children often must walk for miles — risking rape and other dangers — to collect firewood from ever-diminishing sources. This physically arduous activity limits opportunity for education, participation in civic life, and income-generating activities. To save fuel, refugee families sometimes sacrifice nutritious foods like beans, which require hours of cooking, for quicker-cooking, less nutritious foods. They may even trade some of their meager food rations in exchange for firewood from neighboring populations, further reducing nutrition.

Inexpensive, effective solar cookers can be life-saving tools in these situations, not only for cooking but also for pasteurization of drinking water. Solar cookers can also be useful in the weeks and months after natural disasters, when disrupted electricity and gas infrastructure leave urban dwellers without the ability to cook for extended periods of time.

In partnership with local and international agencies, SCI has enabled thousands of refugee families in multiple countries to cook food and pasteurize water with simple solar cookers. Surveys reveal that the solar cookers allow them on average to save 27% of their firewood, while some report savings up to 70%. No longer forced to trade food rations for wood, refugees have been able to increase their food consumption by an average of four servings daily.

Better health among the refugees — resulting from less air pollution, fewer burns, and better nutrition — has been a side-benefit of the projects. The introduction of solar cooking technology has also helped conserve wood and prevent fires.

SCI has conducted humanitarian assistance projects in Kenya and Ethiopia, and currently partners with KoZon Foundation to bring solar cooking skills and supplies to Darfur refugees living in Chad.

Major projects to date:

• Iridimi refugee camp, Chad | Darfur refugees
• Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya
• Aisha refugee camp, Ethiopia
• Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya

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