Climate Action Honduras Project #41366

Protect Vital Forests, Air, Health for Hondurans

by Trees Water & People

Protect Vital Forests, Air, Health for Hondurans

Project Report | Jun 4, 2026
The Heartbeat of Honduras' Clean Cookstove Program

By Daniela Bueso | TWP Mesoamerica Program Director

Stovebuilders are locally certified technicians.

Since launching the clean cookstove program in Honduras in 1998, Trees, Water and People and its community partners have installed more than 300,000 stoves for underserved families who now breathe easier, save and earn money, and reduce firewood use–saving 30,000 trees each year and protecting nearby ancestral mountain forests. Even with this historic success, we all realize that there is still so much more to do, with 1 million households in Honduras still cooking over an indoor open flame. The key to this program’s success is its longevity and sustainability, and the heartbeat of the program–what keeps it moving forward, what helps us reach more families– is the training and certification of the maestros fogoneros (master stovebuilders).

What makes the stovebuilders so important? First, TWP works with a local partner, AHDESA, to train and certify each stovebuilder and ensure high-quality service. The communities we serve are often in remote areas with difficult terrain. Continuing to support local technicians, who can sell or replace cookstove materials locally, makes travel to homes more feasible. Second, the income generated from this work stays local, and stovebuilders also become the service providers for repairs, stove parts, inspections, and evaluation. Third, stovebuilders also become advocates for the program, connect with municipalities, spread the word, and help with the expansion into new communities. And finally, the stovebuilder program has become a champion for gender equity, as we recruit more women to become maestras fogoneras (about 40% of stovebuilder recruits each year are women). Investing in women entrepreneurs, for an industry that is predominantly male, and in a country where extreme poverty and single motherhood are rising due to climate-related migration, means that TWP and AHDESA are creating long-term hope through economic stability for women and staging an example for the importance of gender equity to other industries and sectors.

The multifaceted success of the training and certifying master stovebuilders is how we know that the clean cookstove program will continue to play an important role in protecting Honduras’ families and forests, and improving family health, so long as millions of homes are still in need.

Stovebuilders train to install and repair stoves.

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Feb 3, 2026
Sustaining Income for Honduran Communities

By Daniela Bueso | TWP Mesoamerica Program Director

Local leaders promote the clean cookstove program

In 2025, Trees, Water and People (TWP) helped keep more than 150 people employed.

TWP knows that people can only sustain their territories if they can sustain their families. And like many of our programs, the clean cookstoves program in Honduras keeps this recognition central, investing in sustained benefits for local communities, economies, and environments.

In conventional clean cookstoves programs, large organizations often build stoves rapidly, attempting to reach a maximum number of stoves per dollar. But this approach misses the bigger vision of sustainability we are all working towards.

How are local people included in the process? Who will fix the stove if it breaks? And how will more stoves be built in the future?

At TWP, even more than building stoves, we focus on building systems – systems that ensure locals lead the process and have the capacity to carry it forward long into the future.

As an integral part of the clean cookstoves program, we’re collaborating with our local partner, AHDESA, to expand the Maestros Fogoneros network, which trains and equips local community members to establish their own small businesses as stove builders and repairers. Currently, 22 stove builders are participating in the program, significantly increasing their monthly income, and another 17 individuals are employed through the local design and fabrication of stove parts.

“The creation of small local businesses for the construction and sale of stoves continues to be a driver of employment and economic autonomy in local communities” – AHDESA, Honduras

In 2025, the Maestros Foganores network constructed 1,390 stoves within rural Honduran households.

That’s 1,390 families who aren’t breathing in smoke every time they cook a meal, saving hundreds of dollars a year on purchase of firewood. And that’s additional 39 families with a valuable new source of income.

That's thousands of trees still growing, and thousands of metric tons of carbon not emitted into the atmosphere.

That’s a win-win for people and the planet.

Stove part replacement sales boost economy.

Honduran families breathe easier with new stoves.

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Oct 8, 2025
Building Stoves, Empowering Women

By Daniela Bueso | TWP Mesoamerica Program Director

Stovebuilders are able to build stable income.

Trees, Water & People and its local Honduran partner, AHDESA, is on track this year to reach its annual goal of installing clean cookstoves for 2,000 underserved families throughout Honduras.

Each stove installation improves the health and air quality for families by 80% and reduces firewood consumption by 1,500 pounds annually. But the impact of these stoves go far beyond the families who receive them. This program employs a network of welders, brickmakers, sheet metal workers, and truck drivers, who now have steady income. Additionally, specifically for the stovebuilder training program, our aim is to make 40% of the recruits to be women.

The women master stovebuilders, or Maestras Fogoneras, are training and certifying alongside their male counterparts through the clean cookstove program. These women are redefining traditional economic roles, and for some, it is the first time their families have ever had a stable income.

One Maestra Fogonera works in very rural areas outside Olanchito, Honduras, sometimes traveling two hours by horse to reach the families she serves. “I love my job and seeing the joy it brings people when we finish the stove,” she says.

Another sees her role with an even wider lens. “When I started the process, I doubted myself,” she says. “Since I started in 2019 working as a Maestra Fogonera, I don’t feel doubts anymore.… Now there are more women who are trained, and there are more who want to be trained. I am going to include them so that they can learn, too.”

In 2025, 22 stovebuilders received training and certification, increasing our reach to communities and their continuing demand to install more stoves. We are so grateful to GlobalGiving donors for supporting improvements in air, forest, and family health for so many Hondurans, and for creating the opportunity for employment – especially for many women – to have steady income and improve their families’ lives.

Two Maestras Fogoneras receive certified training.

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