Jambaar meeting in the village

The Beer-Sheba Project in partnership with Peracod/FASEN has undertaken an extensive village tour in the Sandiara area, visiting women’s groups to introduce the improved cooking stoves. The representative from Peracod/FASEN has extensive experience in promoting the stoves, and she was assisted by the President of the Sandiara women’s groups as well as a former nationwide president. The aim was to make the women aware of the advantages of the stoves, and the launching event at the Sandiara market on the Saturday of that week.

Some of the women were so pleased just to see the stoves, that they did a little dance of joy. This same reaction we also encountered at the market, when one of the women’s groups came to buy four stoves. We even had one of the women singing at the microphone. (Sorry, we enjoyed that so much, we failed to take a photo in time.) The sale of stoves didn’t fill up the bank, but then again we probably should not have had such high expectations, because in a week or so the Tabaski festival requires muslim families to buy a ram and prepare it for the feast. You can easily buy four or five or twenty Furno Jambaars (stoves) for the kind of money they need to spend on a ram!

The village groups were encouraged to organise a system whereby each household pays a small amount each week, from which they can buy a stove en distribute it to one of the members of the group. This means it will take a little while before all the households have their own furno jambaar. We will have regular sales at the Sandiara market, as well as from the Beer-Sheba office/guest-house in town.

Sandiara market event