By Daniela Bueso | TWP Mesoamerica Program Director
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.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
