World Pneumonia Day – Clean cookstoves.

I saw a tweet yesterday from Christine over at Thinly Spread that reminded me of World Pneumonia Day today, so this afternoon I spent some time doing research. Many children die of pneumonia in the developing world – far too many. And so do women – the deaths are disproportionately focussed on the ppl around the stoves when cooking is going on. Mothers, their babes in arms, their younger children.

Obviously one of the strands used to attack this problem is vaccination – I’m not going to dwell on that here. There are plenty of ppl campaigning for better access to vaccines, and if you read Thinly Spread above, you’ll get more links. Instead I’m going to look into the other suggested strand – clean cookstoves. This is a route championed by Julia Roberts, who is the Global Ambassador for the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.

Working towards families in developing countries using clean cookstoves doesn’t just cut pneumonia rates. Often these programs are being implemented using women led businesses, which also empowers women out of poverty, having a knock on effect on their lives, their children’s lives and the country around them. Rates of education rise, stability increases, places change. It can improve personal safety by cutting the amount of time needed to search for fuel, and could cut down on the amount of environmental damage done by using biomass for fuel – depending of course on what particular technology is chosen for the clean cookstove.

What I found difficult to discover was how individuals can help. You can sign up to get updates from the Global Alliance. There’s a donation button – but it doesn’t actually say what effect your donation will have. What I’d like to find is some kind of micro finance loan system to support women setting up in business to sell stoves, particularly solar stoves as that’s a technology that I think needs more support, but I’m still looking for that. However, at least today I’ve raised my own awareness of the issues involved, and hopefully I’ve raised yours too. Do pop over to Christine’s blog for further information on what you can do to help.