An ambitious project – combining the improvement of living conditions and health with climate protection, launched 2020 right before the COVID-Crisis and despite all limitations – is getting more successful by the day. To cover the huge demand for the „MADDO ECO STOVE“, Caritas MADDO needs more support to expand the project. We produced a short Video for you to get an idea of this flagship project. Josefine Mukusa, Local Project Coordinator for Caritas Maddo gave us a short interview: WATCH AND READ about the big impact of this small STOVE!
H3: Josefine, why was this project necessary for the people here?
Josefine: The vast majority of households in rural Uganda still cook on traditional open 3-stone fires, an inefficient cooking technology that requires large quantities of firewood. This has serious social (e.g., health) and environmental (e.g., deforestation, CO2 emissions, climate change) impacts.
To reduce the negative impacts, since June 2020 Caritas MADDO installs energy efficient cook stoves in 6 districts of the Masaka Diocese (Masaka, Bukomansimbi, Kyotera, Rakai, Lwengo and Kalungu) at an affordable price, subsidized by carbon credits.
The project aims to help rural households to transition from traditional to energy-efficient cook stoves built from bricks directly in the kitchen. These cook stoves are durable, robust and safe, reducing firewood consumption by 40% and smoke emissions significantly. Furthermore, the use of local materials and the training of local stove builders create jobs. The project was developed and is coordinated by the Austrian Development Organization HORIZONT3000 (Vienna, Austria) as a carbon offset project and implemented by Caritas MADDO (Masaka, Uganda). The project is financed by a grant from DKA Austria and the proceeds from emission certificates.
Until now, 1100 stoves were sold and are well accepted by the clients. In the course of the current Pilot Project, Caritas MADDO also created the technical and institutional capacities to successfully implement projects for CO2 compensation through partnership-based work and targeted training.
H3: What are the future plans for the project?
Josefine: The current pilot project was designed for households. While marketing and installing the MADDO stove in the years 2020 – 2022, many customers and potential customers asked for bigger stoves as well as for other environmentally friendly/energy efficient products. There is also a demand for institutional stoves in schools, hospitals, hotels and restaurants. Even parishes, which are much bigger than households, are interested in stoves larger than the MADDO stoves. The Diocese has 59 parishes, 464 catholic primary schools plus secondary schools and schools operated by the government and other organisations.
Therefore, Caritas MADDO is now interested in the development of a Stand-Alone Gold Standard Certified Carbon Project for submission to the Klima-Kollekte portfolio.
The currently sold MADDO stove for households shall be continued to be constructed and sold, because the stove is very successful. The option of adding a third fire chamber will be evaluated. Additionally, the viability of the introduction of portable household stoves, portable and built-in institutional stoves for schools, parishes, restaurants, hotels, etc. in the Masaka Diocese, Uganda as well as the introduction of briquettes will be determined.
The experiences and institutional as well as technical capacities gathered by Caritas MADDO and HORIZONT3000 in the current pilot project provide and important base and starting point to expand the introduction of more climate friendly cooking technologies in the Diocese!
