Protect Guatemalan Forests with Clean Cookstoves

Multigenerational Stove Families Make the Best Success Stories

Maria and Gaspar are an elderly, very traditional Tz'utujil couple in their seventies. Ten years ago, they learned of the ONIL stove, back when our stove team members were installing ONIL stoves under the auspices of the Cojolya Association of Maya Women Weavers—at that time, a social project of the Cojolya Association. Being hard working and frugal people, Maria and Gaspar jumped at the opportunity to reduce the amount of firewood Gaspar brought home in his cayuco from his land on the other side of the lake. 

Maria and Gaspar cared lovingly for their stove and replaced the combustion chamber about five years ago. When their eldest daughter, Magdalena, was married, she got herself an ONIL stove, having learned first-hand from her parents of the many benefits—benefits she wanted to share with her new husband. Magdelena soon had a son of her own, and he decided he wanted an ONIL stove when he grew up.

Now a widow, Magdalena has moved back with her parents to assist them in their old age. She left her ONIL stove with her son and his wife. Magdalena then asked Tu’ik Ruch’ Lew to install an ONIL of her own in her mother’s kitchen. On the day of this photo, TRL replaced the combustion chamber again for the elderly couple and checked the condition of Magdalena’s new ONIL. 

TRL has learned that if one family member successfully adapts to the new technology—the small firebox, the reduced need for wood, the economic benefits—other family members become successful stove users too because they have already learned best practices at their mother’s side. TRL believes that a multi-generational ONIL stove family makes the best success story. As in the case of Maria and Gaspar, when the older generation passes best stove practices down to the next generation, TRL can feel pretty assured that the next generation will be using the ONIL successfully too.   

It’s important to note that for each stove installed, TRL spends on average 20 hours of follow-up time on education and maintenance over the guaranteed 10-year life of a stove—a vital component of TRL’s program success. And that vital follow-up component is what gave TRL a 100% successful adoption rate for all stoves installed in 2022.

Thanks to your support, TRL’s stove project helps families like this acquire an ONIL stove—the total cost of which would be impossible for nearly all of our families. Your generous donations subsidize the cost for families and empowers them to join TRL’s Climate Action Movement.