Trees, Water & People (TWP) is driving development in Haiti through social enterprise. Over the past 16 months, TWP has been working to build a sustainable market for clean cookstoves in Port-au-Prince, creating much needed employment & allowing families to safely prepare food, purify water, and save money. The Zanmi Pye Bwa cookstove is designed to be built, repaired, and refurbished with locally available skills and resources, and is currently being distributed by vendors throughout the city.
As Haiti continues to rebuild from the devastating 2010 earthquake, TWP has identified one major challenge common to every part of the reconstruction effort: lack of sustainable employment. In addition to this, families are still spending between 30% - 50% of their meager income on fuel to cook their family's daily meals. Demand for charcoal is as voracious as ever, and with diminishing supplies, prices will continue to rise. We are addressing these issues with sustainable social enterprise.
TWP's Zanmi Pye Bwa clean cookstove project holds so much promise for Haiti's future - we have created a locally manufactured product that provides life-changing opportunities for under-employed metal workers, entrepreneurs with retail businesses, and families that benefit from its fuel and money saving design. Commercializing this product generates rapid awareness of the importance of reducing charcoal consumption, and helps everyone involved improve their livelihoods and local environment.
Every Zanmi Pye Bwa cookstove put into use will save a family between 30 - 40% on fuel expenses, will provide a team of metal workers with a living wage, will generate margin for an entrepreneurial vendor, will raise awareness regarding the benefits of reducing charcoal use, and will provide numerous additional opportunities for people throughout the value chain. Every 1,000 cookstoves will reduce the use of an estimated 250,000kg of charcoal per year, saving Haitians almost $200,000.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
