Saving Lives - Improving Health in Rural Guatemala

Exposure to smoke from open fire cookstoves, the primary means of cooking and heating for impoverished families living in Guatemala, causes more than 5,000 deaths every year.

Toxic indoor smoke contributes to a range of chronic illnesses and actue health issues such as early childhood pneumonia, emphysema, cataracts, lung cancer, bronchitis, cardiovascular disease, and low birth weight.  Women and young children are the most affected, with 1,300 children in Guatemala dying annually as a result of acute lower respiratory infections and burns caused by open fire cookstoves.  

More than 60% of Guatemala's population relies on wood for household cooking. Open fire cookstoves lead to environmental degradation and forces women and children to spend many hours each week collecting wood.  Inefficient cooking also contributes to climate change through emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.

The use of cleaner, more efficient cookstovs dramatically reduces exposure to harmful cooking smoke, reduces forest degradation, and reduces the time women and children spend collecting firewood. Typically, women in rural Guatemala spend 6 - 8 hours a day cooking over open fires, often with children near the stove.

Chapina stoves are safe, efficient, vented stoves that use 70% less wood than the traditional open fire cookstoves.  The stove is designed for the way women cook in Guatemala. Tortillas and pots of beans or rice can be cooked on the same surface thus reducing cooking time and using less wood. The Chapina stove is large enough to easily cook for a family of 6 to 8 people.  

The cost of a Chapina stove is $135.  You can save lives by making a donation to purchase a Chapina stove. Hundreds of women and children need your help.