THE SWICTH OF MABILIONI COMMUNITY FROM USING TRADITIONAL 3 FIGURE STOVE TO IMPROVED COOKING STOVE (MKOMBOZI)

Dada Asha lives and owns a local restaurant in Mabilioni B hamlet of Mabilioni village, the villages SMECAO and WWF – Tanzania began working in early 2015 with the crucial goal of transforming it into Energy Model Village. With severe semi arid characteristics, Mabilioni is one of the villages with reported severe biomass fuel scarcity. Like so many other lowland rural villages in Same district, Mabilioni community lacks alternative cooking technology, where 99% Household used traditional 3 figure stoves which consumed an average of 3 bundles per week, which had to be fetched on an average 7.5km one way, in forest found beyond                                                                           river Pangani in Simanjiro District.

With completely none- existence of community knowledge/awareness in cooking technology switch, this has highly increased women and girls workloads which contributes highly in gender imbalance and increased cases on Air Respiratory infection among women. Furthermore, in case they are caught cutting wood in Simanjiro they end up being beaten by Masaai people.

In view of above problem, SMECAO in funding from WWF-Tanzania the first priority was to increase availability of biomass energy. Where by a total of 34 TOTs (17 Male, 17 Female) of Mkombozi Fuel Efficient were trained for 44 days on construction and maintenance of the stove. With the ultimate aim of having 674 household with improved cooking stove in Mabilioni, after the training 34 local technicians of Mkombozi stove achieved to construct a total of 442 improved cooking stoves reaching 64% of the target while, 4 Institution Mkombozi Fuel Efficient Stoves were built in 1 school and 1 religious center and 2 local restaurant centers.

Dada Asha was one of 4 beneficiaries to benefit from the use of Institution Mkombozi Stove as the owner of one of local restaurants in Mabilioni village, Mabilioni B sub village. When SMECAO project officer visited her restaurant for quality control check up, Dada Asha could not hold back her praises for the stove.

“Before I had Mkombozi Stove I was using traditional 3 figure stoves that use up to 5 bundles of fuel wood per week that cost 12,500Tshs since I purchase them while, per month I use up to 50,000 Tshs. Since I have started using Mkombozi stove now I am using only 2 bundles per week which costs me only 5,000Tshs thus am able to save 7,500Tshs per week and 30,000Tshs per month. With my income that is a lot may God, the Almighty high, bless you so much”.