By next spring, he also expects the organization to
implement a water purification system that makes polluted
water drinkable by way of the stove’s similarly applied high
heat. Colgan’s partner in the project and engineer, Damon
Ogle, is producing a liter of clean drinking water every 15
seconds in trials with the current stove. “This system kills
every critter that harms human health,” Colgan says.
STUDENTS AT OTASH SCHOOL IN DARFUR
STOVE PRODUCTION
Across from the former slaughterhouse turned testing
center, Dennis Hartley, a volunteer in the office for more
than a year, walks through the workshop with its blaring
music for the builders who are hammering and welding
away. Against the wall are stacks of the slender steel barrels
that will become stoves.
The shop currently puts together 10 stoves a day. Right
now, Colgan says that United Nations agencies are their
biggest customer, putting the stoves to use at refugee
camps. During this period of transition, Hartley says 200
stoves are currently being used in Darfur and 60 are being
used in Ethiopia. But soon this will change too. The number
of stoves being used overseas is expected to increase as ISS
transitions.
Within ARC, Colgan and Ogle developed the Institutional
Stove Project, which saw a need for more stoves around the
developing world at schools and other institutions. “Our goal
is to see as many of these [stoves] mass produced as possible
because the need is so huge,” Colgan says. He recalls a
school in Nigeria where three stoves have been used to feed
1,200 students every day. “People are just clamoring for these
stoves,” he says. The new organization has plans to open a
factory by the fall of 2012 in Nigeria, and they have
initiatives floating for factories in Kenya, Uganda and
Ghana. The organization’s motives for in-country production
are two-fold: It will employ local people, and the stoves can
be more easily repaired by in-country employees. He
estimates that because the parts of the stove are so
interchangeable, the stoves can last up to 10 years if there is
a local shop to repair them on the ground.
ISS will also be expanding its production of the green
stoves in the Willamette Valley. The organization has been
scouting out real estate with more space to operate out of in
Cottage Grove. On the island, when the stoves are ready to
be shipped overseas, the workers have taken the stoves in a
U-Haul across Highway 99 to a lumberyard before putting
them on a larger delivery truck because the larger truck
wouldn’t fit underneath the railroad trestle. Colgan expects
the staff of three builders to increase to 10 full-time
employees in the next 12 months and double that in the next
18. “This is going to grow very fast,” he says.
Because of the need to feed large numbers of people, the
new organization will also be building a 100-liter version of
the stove. The wider and taller adaptation will actually
produce a greater benefit. “It’s a happy accident of physics,”
Colgan says about the larger version. He describes how
because it is bigger there is more heat transfer. “The bigger
the pot the more area that’s basically attracting the heat —
we get better heat transfer.”
Another addition ISS plans to implement will be
addressing wood scarcity, which can be a cause for contention
between people in African countries and other parts of the
developing world. “There’s no trees left there, no fuel left,”
Colgan says about places like Darfur and Haiti.
The nonprofit has developed a prototype mechanism
that looks not unlike a medieval torture device, which forms
a mold of waste paper, animal dung, straw, crop waste,
pretty much “anything they can find,” he says. The slurry
forms into what ISS is calling biomass briquettes, which are
put in the sun to dry. According to Colgan, this will
ultimately replace 80 percent of the need for wood for the
stoves. “It burns in our stoves the same fuel value as wood,”
he says. This technique is still being tested out and will be
used in field trials overseas later this year.
YOUTH INVOLVEMENT
Along with new use of Aprovecho’s original stove and
expanding production, ISS is making an effort to get the
younger generation involved with its growing
organization. Hartley says the goal is to recruit “young
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PHOTO COURTESY ISS
STOVES WITH A PURPOSE
StoveTeam International, a Eugene-based organization that is closely tied to nearby Aprovecho
Research Center almost didn’t get off the ground. After Nancy Hughes’ husband passed away in
2001, she began volunteering in Guatemala as a cook with Cascade Medical Team. She saw what
smoke from open-fire cooking was doing to women and children. She was overwhelmed by the
incredible need for safe stoves that wouldn’t send smoke directly into the lungs of cooks and their
children and put them at risk of burns.
In 2007 Larry Winiarski showed her his design for what would become the Ecocina stove. The
clay stove is shorter and stouter than the Aprovecho “rocket-stove” that Winiarksi also designed,
but it serves the same function.
To get started, Hughes got a little help from a legendary guitarist: Carlos Santana. His Milagro
Foundation made a donation of $10,000 to get a factory started in El Salvador producing the
Ecocina stove, which is a hybrid of the English prefix for environmental and the Spanish word for
kitchen.
StoveTeam International has had the Ecocina stove tested at Aprovecho. They found out that it
cuts down on about 50 percent of wood usage. It is easy to start and is also cool to the touch. The
organization now has six factories in five countries, all created within the last four years.
The stoves are being manufactured mainly in Central America with local workers manufacturing
them in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and now Mexico.
In December 2011, Nancy Hughes made her way to San Francisco Bay to officially receive a
Purpose Prize, which entailed $100,000 for her work.
The prize was awarded to five other Americans over 60 who are making a difference. “I told my
kids I’m now certifiably old,” Hughes, now 69, says with a laugh. Her colleague nominated her for
the prize after hearing about it on NPR. “I didn’t know anything about it,” she says.
The large sum of money from the prize is being put to good use. “It went all to StoveTeam,”
Hughes says. “That’s why I got the prize.” — Ted Shorack
people with energy.” He adds, “We’re reaching out in a
lot of different directions to create an organization with a
support system.”
One of those ways is to tap into the availability of
passionate students from the nearby UO. Vesta Tsao, who
will be a senior at the UO next fall, began interning at the
organization after hearing about it at the school’s local
undergrad chapter of Net Impact, a national student
organization that has students put their business skills to use
by finding more sustainable business practices. When Tsao
came to ISS, she found it unique and different from other
internships. “What they really want is to get more young
people involved,” she says. “They kind of let you do your
own thing.” Tsao was able to be creative in finding ways to
brainstorm partnership ideas with local businesses and seek
out the Cottage Grove community. Along with Stella
Strother-Blood, a recent graduate of Western Oregon
University who is working for ISS, Tsao will be doing
outreach to connect UO students with the organization in
the hopes of cultivating volunteers. A UO student advocacy
group is in the works, according to Hartley, and Tsao
foresees the possibility of an office on campus where
students can come in and obtain information about the
organization. Volunteers, donors, organizational people —
all kinds will be needed to help move the organization
forward and younger innovators are what ISS is aiming to
attract at the moment.
All the change and excitement has Colgan traveling a lot
these days — during the first week of July he traveled to
Geneva, Switzerland, to meet with U.N. agencies and other
potential stove purchasers. He has his phone constantly by
his side and admits he has a lot of balls in the air right now.
But the mission of Aprovecho’s stoves and now ISS is still
very simple. “From the very beginning we set out to help
the poorest of the poor,” he says. “Our mission is to help
poor people and now to create a sustainable organization.”
Although it might be scary to see so much change in a short
amount of time, he still has a smile behind his mustache,
saying “it’s really fun to be a part of something that brings
change to people’s lives.”
ew
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