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 La Casa de Alegria, a girls home situated in Quillacollo, Bolivia, recently received two ecological stoves from CEDESOL. La Casa de la Alegria is home to nearly forty young girls from the greater Cochabamba area. The girls home functions as a community, with each girl actively taking part in the daily chores such as cooking and cleaning, while studying in the nearby schools.
CEDESOL trained the orphanage´s staff and to the older kids on proper use of a solar cooker and an efficient wood burning stove. The best way to learn is to see how things are done in practice. Based on this principle, CEDESOL´s staff and volunteers cooked lunch together with Casa de la Alegria using the new stoves...continue Efficient wood stoves and climate training A truck full of stoves and another car full of CEDESOL staff and volunteers headed off from Cochabamba one early morning. After some hours of driving along the hilly roads we reached the destination, village of Santivañes.
CEDESOL´s partners from World Vision and the project participants had gathered together to receive training on how to build and use efficient wood burning stoves. The financial support from World Vision allowed 20 families to purchase the stoves with a subsidized price. Some months earlier, another 22 families in the same community had received stoves in a similar project...continue New Kyoto project about to kick off CEDESOL is about to start a project with the support of Kyoto Twist Solar Cooking Society. We are currently gathering up a group of 50 families that will receive solar stoves and training in a subsidized price. The selected families will commit to the project for 3 months and report their fuel savings and new cooking habits.
For the participants the stoves will mean economical savings and improvement in both health and time use. As a bigger picture, the families will use less firewood and produce less black carbon emissions.
Two of the participants will be named as coordinators and they will help CEDESOL to arrange the training and will serve as advocates in the community for the duration of the project. In the trainings the participants will learn how to cook different dishes with the solar stoves...continue CEDESOL promoted ecological stoves in the Cochabamba climate conference The World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth was a great opportunity for CEDESOL to promote alternative technologies and to raise awareness about black carbon. Our message was: Practical solutions to combat climate change already exist, so let´s use them!
CEDESOL actively took part in the conference that was held April 19-22 and represented several partner organizations such as Solar Cookers International, Solar Cookers Worldwide Network, Kyoto Twist Society, Bioenergy Stove Group and Solar Household Energy. We gave out thousands of information packages and had personal contact to delegates from all over the world...continue Let´s reduce black carbon emissions right now Thousands of grass root organisations, politicians, intellectuals, scientists and individuals will debate about climate change on April 19-22 in Cochabamba, Bolivia. CEDESOL´s message in The World People´s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth highlights black carbon (soot) emissions and the practical solutions that are available to tackle them.
”The world can do something immediately, without treaties or round-table discussions, massive employment of ecological cookers can reduce the advancement of global warming now”, says CEDESOL´s director David Whitfield. Black carbon contributes approximately twenty percent of the global warming. It warms the planet by absorbing heat in the atmosphere and when it lands on snow, ice caps and glaciers it absorbs the sun's heat, reduces reflectivity and causes widespread and faster melting and sea level rise...continue
From the countryside to the cities – Solar cookers conquer new territories
 When it comes to cooking, fifty families in the Colquiri neighborhood, located in the city of Cochabamba, are not dependent on gas anymore. In October of 2009, these families were introduced to the benefits of solar cooking technology by CEDESOL, Sobre La Roca, and the Kyoto Twist Solar Cooking Society.
“Now, money goes farther, the food is always hot and I don´t need to reheat it, I save time and money, and I am happy. I thank the project for having changed my life”, says Carmen Achá Nova de Velasquez, one of the beneficiaries.
After having demonstrated the benefits of solar ovens in urban communities in an earlier project with Kyoto Twist, this project sought to increase the quality of life among citizens in another neighborhood. The project also raised awareness about solar technology in the broader community, increased education about environmental issues, and demonstrated the benefits solar ovens provided in urban neighborhoods for fuel savings, economic savings, environmental benefits, health and time-use...continue
Families received safe and ecological stoves thanks to volunteer fundraising Communities in Beni, Bolivian amazones, can now cook their meals in a more ecological, economic and healthier way with their new rocket stoves. CEDESOL´s two volunteers, Jenny Ilias from Australia and Andy Dinnendahl from Canada, raised funds to help families that live in very basic conditions.
People in remote villages located in Ibiato County often have to spend hours every day collecting firewood. The traditional stoves that they use expose them to poisonous fumes that cause many health problems such as lung cancer and tuberculosis. On the other hand, using wood as fuel emits green house gases and creates deforestation...continue
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On 25th June two volunteers and the director made the hour-long journey from Cochabamba to the village of San Benito. At the local school, the middle-of-year meeting was in full swing, the students waiting patiently for their winter holidays, which begin tomorrow. CEDESOL director David Whitfield was given first slot at the meeting, and explained this exciting new CEDESOL project.
Four CEDESOL staff members and volunteers made the 17 hour journey from Cochabamba to the village of Macharet
Since CEDESOL´s successful visit to Macharet
On Friday 23rd July the big day finally came for fifty inhabitants of San Benito, one hour outside Cochabamba, as their solar cookers were delivered on a large flat-bed truck. Five CEDESOL staff also went to San Benito that day, and conducted a further training session on the use of the cookers. At the end of the day we collected the questionnaires they had been filling out during the afternoon. These are very useful research for future as they ask questions like “What is the most common food you cook?” and “How many people do you usually cook for?” It also aims to get some idea of the peoples´ level of understanding of the threat posed by climate change. 
to turn around the fortunes of an agricultural community in Cochabamba, Bolivia. In Coachaca Grande, a village of just 120 families, 30 families were chosen through the Kyoto Twist Solar Cooking Society selection interview process to participate in building their own box-type solar cookers and learn how to use them most effectively.
The work of incorporating ecological cookers is not for the faint-hearted. Just ask Ruth Saavedra. Ruth, owner of micro-enterprise Sobre La Roca, bears witness to the white-knuckle-ride adventure that delivering solar cookers and improved wood cookers can be. Working in 5 of the 9 departments of Bolivia, Ruth will go to almost any lengths to make sure that the people who want her cookers get them. 
sustainable development, recently came to an end. It proved a hugely encouraging success with 58% of people choosing a solar cooker over an improved wood cooker, demonstrating that people will make a choice that is best for the environment as well as for them when the facts are presented to them. The good news is that CEDESOL has a new agreement with GTZ for 1,000 stoves. The subsidy has been significantly reduced however so we are looking for ways to cover this deficit. If you would like to support us in this endeavor, please visit our