This piece was beforehand printed on Mercy Corps Technology for Development weblog. In 2017, Cisco launched a 5-year, $10 million partnership with Mercy Corps known as Technology for Impact. Our aim was to assist Mercy Corps use know-how to ship humanitarian help sooner, extra effectively, and to extra individuals.
Every meal tells a narrative. For lots of these in rural communities, that story lives within the prolonged and generally perilous journey to gather firewood for cooking gasoline to feed households. Though firewood has been a staple of conventional range cooking, the smoke of cooking over an open fireplace is dangerous to each individuals and the setting. Inhalation of smoke from coal, charcoal, kerosene, and different conventional brokers can result in stroke, lung most cancers, coronary heart illness, and power obstructive pulmonary illness. Household air air pollution equally harms youngsters. As cooking typically falls on ladies and ladies, they disproportionately bear these grave well being burdens and will even face familial battle if they’re unable to safe cooking gasoline to arrange meals for his or her family.
Together, PESITHO and Mercy Corps are telling a brand new story by reimagining conventional cooking strategies within the Bidi Bidi refugee camp and surrounding communities in Uganda in order that the resounding story is certainly one of accessibility, affordability, and sustainability. Supported by Mercy Corps’ partnership with Cisco and the Elrha Journey 2 Scale (J2S) grant, PESITHO and Mercy Corps have launched an modern enterprise mannequin, the pay-as-you-cook (PAYC) mannequin, to subsidize the capital prices of the ECOCA solar-powered cooking range. Because many rural communities stay off-grid and lack entry to vitality, few different vitality sources exist to help the day by day wants of dwelling, most notably, cooking.
The ECOCA Cooking Unit
The ECOCA solar-powered cooking range is designed by PESITHO to energy households with their cooking and electrical energy wants. According to PESITHO, a household with a mean of 5–7 members can cook dinner 3 meals per day, together with after hours at the hours of darkness. The cooking unit additionally options two USB charging ports, which can be utilized to cost different home equipment, akin to cellphones, and two rechargeable, transportable lamps. This design expands alternatives for households to generate extra earnings and even proceed actions that have been beforehand restricted as a result of an absence of electrical energy and sufficient lighting. These actions might embrace learning or practising expertise and crafts that help earnings technology.
The Pay-As-You-Cook (PAYC) Model
ECOCA items are each retailed and assembled domestically, hiring refugees and members of the host communities as technicians. The PAYC cost mannequin permits households to pay per utilization over a most interval of three years. PAYGo items include two circuit boards within the base which permit for the cost mechanism to perform. The system is ready to monitor utilization information, offering insights into carbon emissions related to every cooking exercise.
The PAYGo system improves how technicians help individuals because it has GPS monitoring, permitting technicians to determine which items are out of cash in order that they could notify the participant. Sometimes, individuals moved, additional including to the advantages of the PAYC system as its GPS capabilities allowed for retailers and technicians to keep up communication with individuals. PESITHO continues to work with Airtel, a telecommunications firm, to auto-generate activation codes which might be despatched to individuals’ telephones to self-activate or renew. Currently, the technical staff continues to be manually producing the codes and going to participant properties to activate and renew.
Praises from Participants
Participant Abu Simon informed our program staff that earlier than the pilot, it price his household 30,000 UGX (about $7 USD) for a sack of charcoal, lasting for one month. Firewood set them again an extra 6,000 UGX ($1.55 USD) per bundle. From early morning till the afternoon, he and his household would collect firewood. The ECOCA cooker significantly diminished the time spent gathering firewood, which was a possibility price to pursuing actions for private growth.
For one other participant, Moses, the ECOCA has illuminated his entrepreneurial spirit. In his zone, charging your cell phone for the day prices 500 UGX. Moses has been ready so as to add an extra income stream by providing the USB ports on his unit to his neighbors at a lowered worth of 300 UGX. In addition to being one other supply of earnings, these entrepreneurial practices permit for the unit to pay for itself.
Improving ECOCA for the Future
Our staff has recognized how ECOCA could be improved to raised meet the day by day wants of individuals:
- Overwhelming demand: The demand for ECOCA items far exceeded the 25 items used on this pilot. To resolve this hole in demand, non-public sector approaches need to be utilized in order that the items are accessible past the humanitarian context. Mercy Corps is within the ultimate levels of onboarding Equity Bank Uganda Limited to pilot a rural monetary companies program for the ECOCA items. PESITHO has dedicated to supplying 100 items for the pilot.
- Weak connectivity. Connectivity at participant properties and the PESITHO Innovation Centers has not been optimum. Retailers generally have to depart a participant’s house in an effort to get sign or sufficient connectivity to entry technical help, delaying the method.
- Difficulty executing repairs: Many retailers have restricted expertise to deal with repairs. The meeting center-based technicians have extra expertise and can host clinics on the distribution hubs in zones 3 and 4 to construct capability for this ability set and practice and mentor retailers.
- Availability of shops: While the retailers have been usually responsive, wait occasions to obtain help with an ECOCA unit challenge might take as much as every week. This notably impacted those that stay in zones the place there aren’t any retailers. An identical challenge arose with technicians trying to assist these in zones with no technicians or retailers. One participant needed to wait a month to get help from a technician who was already tasked with addressing help requests of their respective zone and was providing extra help to these exterior of the zone. To alleviate this, WhatsApp teams, managed by retailers, are used for communication ease and technical help.
Conclusions
Cooking is extra than simply offering sustenance for ourselves and our communities. It is commonly a culturally salient ritual handed down from technology to technology, which might make the adoption of recent modes of cooking a troublesome transition. Peer-to-peer coaching and information sharing are important to the transition from conventional cooking to different sources of vitality. Some group members are already adept at utilizing the ECOCA and will probably be key ambassadors to scale this innovation in order that clear vitality could be extra accessible and inexpensive. The program staff has deliberate for peer-to-peer coaching and studying occasions for correct use the place group members can collect collectively and share information with one another. The enthusiasm for the potential of solar energy is buzzing amongst individuals with some even suggesting the event of solar-powered washing machines, water heaters, or fridges. With the PAYGo system, extra households can have an inexpensive, accessible, and sustainable means to powering their properties and their futures.
The Technology for Development (T4D) staff supported the Mercy Corps Uganda Team within the supply of this pilot by partnership with Cisco, underneath a 5-year program geared toward utilizing know-how to ship help and growth help sooner, higher, and to extra individuals.
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