Gen2 stove development update

I know it's been a while, so I thought it was about time to let you know what we have been up to the past month or so.

Over the past few weeks I have met with several machine shops, pattern makers and casting outfits.  I started with lead that Charlie (Board Chairman) has to a CNC machine shop "GearWorks" in George Town (South Seattle).  It turned out Roland could not help us directly, but connected me to the casting company just behind his shop. The casting company then connected me to Steven Gary who is an expert in designing and machining molds.  From this meeting we came up with several design changes (I knew there would be once we spoke with the experts in mold making).  The bummer is we needed a design to show them to get their feedback and suggestions.  Like all engineering projects they take time and several modifications along the way to get what one wants and needs.  Gary has great ideas to help us redesign the parts and tools that will make them easier to build  and cheaper. :)

So now we are back to improving the design.  As part of this process we are trying to get the "SolidWorks" CAD software company to donate or discount several licenses so we can get all of our engineers using the same software platform.

Our goal is to be ready to build 50 Gen2 stoves in Chiapas by the end of the year.  This will be a tight schedule, but I think we can pull it off.

Summer Newsletter -- We have been busy

Water for Humans Summer Newsletter: 2014

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WFH exists because of you!!! Thank you for your support. 

click on a picture for the story behind it

   

   

   

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BEAUTIFUL DISHES

What's so special about these dishes in Oaxaca? They are clean! And they are in the same room as a La Mazateca stove. This would never have happened in homes with traditional three-stone fires burning openly. Since late last year, 90 families have installed these stoves in the 4 communities where Water for Humans works. So far 640 men, women, and children have experienced greatly reduced indoor smoke, and women and girls are reporting that their wood cutting time has been reduced 50 to 70%. After seeing the working stoves, another 100 families would like to install them. It is very important to note that these stoves are not given to households. Rather, the community and families have to work to get funding. 

This success has caused us to pursue a second generation clean cook-stove - Generation 2.0. This new stove design will be less costly and much easier to build, more efficient, and thus more sustainable. To make this a reality, we are raising funds for research and development, prototype tooling, and stove certification by the Aprovecho Research Center in Cottage Grove, OR. Certification is very important, because it will give the stove world-wide credibility and enable the stove-builders and emerging social venture enterprise to support their claims as they market the stove. 

Certification of clean cook-stoves is an initiative from the UN and the World Bank. Generaton 2.0 will meet the certification standards of the Global Alliance for Clean Cook-stoves. This includes international standards certified by a third party for indoor and outdoor emissions, and overall cooking efficiencies. The certification process enhances WFH's design process for producing a better stove. It also allows governments, NGOs and end users to objectively evaluate different technologies and provides the potential of selling carbon credits to support climate change initiatives. The Gen-2 clean cook-stoves will be tested in the homes of participating community members. 

Our goal: Generation 2.0 cook-stove will be ready six to nine months after we secure the required funding. 
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CHIAPAS DELEGATION

Where are these people in traditional Chiapas clothing headed? Through our partners at The Hunger Project, women in Chiapas heard about the Generation 1 "La Mazateca" clean cook-stoves and created a video explaining why they needed La Mazateca. They invited Water for Humans and the Mazateca stove-builders to Chiapas. But first, a group from Chiapas traveled to the Mazateca to meet families using the stoves. This was an extraordinary and unique event: Two very different indigenous communities seeking each other out and coming together for mutual advancement. The two indigenous groups needed translators, because few of them speak Spanish, yet they made an amazing connection. In both Chiapas and the Mazateca, the clean cook-stove program has the potential to reach 50,000 people. 
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THE ROAD INTO BAYALEMO, Larrainzar Municipality, Chiapas

Where is this road gong? In late June 2014, this was the first view of Bayalemo for Mazatec stove-builders who made the journey along with Water for Humans co-founder, Stan Brown. The group from the Mazateca spent the next week building a pilot stove with the local community. 
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THE STOVE DESIGN PROCESS

Why are these pots significant? Women in Bayalemo discussed what size pots they would most want to use on the new stove, and after lots of pots were tried out, came to a decision that enabled the stove-builders to modify the stove top design to accommodate the preferred pot sizes. Water for Humans makes sure that local conditions, culture, preferences, and practical concerns are all taken into consideration in our design, engineering, and building processes. This way, long after we are gone our technologies will continue to serve the community.
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BIG PILES OF WOOD

This photo gives some of us a backache just looking at it! This is the amount of wood people in Bayalemo, Chiapas need to keep close at hand for just a few weeks of cooking. Multiply this amount of wood by the 50,000 people in the region who are expected to adopt the La Mazateca clean cook-stove. That's a lot of wood coming out of the rainforest, and that means lost habitat for rainforest creatures and plants, less groundwater retention, less shade for coffee, less water during the annual four-month drought, and more flooding when it finally does rain. The reduction in wood cutting that comes with the adoption of clean cook-stoves will make a major difference for the rainforest and the people living here. 
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HAPPY WOMEN COOKING

These women are happy with the Bayalemo pilot stove and thrilled to start using it as part of the Bayalemo stove lighting ceremony. They also are looking forward to seeing more of these clean cook-stoves in their community. Now and in the coming months when more stove-builders are being trained is the perfect time to introduce the much improved Generation-2 stove. Water for Humans is actively raising funds to complete engineering and testing for this improved stove that will be even less expensive and can be built anywhere in the world. 
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WOMAN WITH LA MAZATECA

This photo was taken in Bayalemo on the day of the new pilot stove lighting ceremony. Compare the thumb-sized diameter of this fuel wood with the photo of big wood piles. Wood this size can be found closer to home, it's easier to transport, and far less is needed. 
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HANDS WEAVING

All along, the Water for Humans team has predicted that as women and girls are freed from the massive amount of time they spend cutting and carrying firewood, they will find more productive uses for their time. The women in Bayalemo already know what they want to do: create more of the beautiful crafts such as the weaving shown here to sell from their cooperative.
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RICK IN A SUIT

Who is the man in the suit? It's Rick McKenney, Water for Humans co-founder and executive director in Geneva accepting an award from the International Licensing Executive Society that is very valuable for us and the communities we work with in Mexico. The award is for pro-bono work securing patents and licensing for our clean cook-stoves. 

With the help of our partner, The Hunger Project (THP), and patent attorneys associated with Invent for Humanity, we plan to secure intellectual property rights in Latin America and India. In collaboration with THP, we will help form a co-op business structure for a social enterprise starting with our current promoters (stove builders) to make the stoves available in the greater Mazateca region. 
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Stan is "On the Ground" in Chiapas Mexico

Stan left on Sunday morning to launch our stove program in Chiapas Mexico.  Stan spend part of the day Monday in Mexico City (D.F.) meeting with the staff at the Hunger Project-Mexico (THP) offices then took a quick flight down to Chiapas (vs a 14 hour bus ride) on to San Christobal.  He was met at the airport by Wendy (THP staff) and rode the 1.5 hours to San Christobal together.  Roberto (THP staff for the Oaxaca region) will join Stan and Wendy on Wednesday along with the 4 stove "Promoters" (builders) from the Mazateca. This team will oversee the building of 2 demonstration stoves.

Late last month a group of representatives from Chiapas went to the Mazateca to see-use and meet both the stove users and builders.  This was culturally significant event as these two indigenous cultural groups had never met each other. In addition they don't peak the same language!  At one level this project is ground breaking as it is being lead by two indigenous cultural groups, that will work together to help expand our stove program in another region in Mexico.

In building the stoves for the families in Chiapas they wanted some modifications to the design.  First, the women make tortillas sitting down, vs standing up in the Mazateca. Thus the stove will be modified to meet the specific cultural needs of these women by lowering the Comal side of the stove.  Second, they wanted the other side of the cook top to be a little lower which we will accommodate. In addition they would like the next generation builds to be in a long line or "L" shape. All of which we can accommodate in the future.

The goal of this pilot build is to; first have the 'Promoters" in Chiapas learn how to build the Gen1 stove from the experienced Promoters from the Mazateca, test the modified design, and then let the families use the stoves for a few months to determine if the "like" then as much as they thing they will.  They already got to use them in there prior trip to the Mazateca, and to suggest modifications and improvements so the stoves will better meet their expectations.

Stay tuned as I hope to hear from Stan (I don't know if he will have internet access or not) over the next 10 days about the progress.

Rick McKenney
Executive Director
Water for Humans

"La Mazateca" Video of our stove builders and users

Please check this out.  It is in Spanish, we are working on translating it and we will post an English version soon.

Day one at the World Intellectual property Forum.

Rick is in Geneva at the Global intellectual property forum. I was an invited speaker last year, to talk about our work in Mexico with the Mazateca indigenous cultural group. I was invited back this year to give input from the perspective of a small NGO working at the BOP, in economically remote regions of the world.

Later tonight I will make a major announcement for Water for Humans, associated with this conference.

This is an interesting place for me to be in as most of our work and innovation is "open source", however, with our Generation 2 clean cookstove program there is the potential for I.P. and licensing of the design and implementation model.

The Cook Stove Workshop Ended Yesterday

Well, we are back in Mexico City, after four days in the Mazateca to finish the cook stove workshop. We arrived in San Jose Tenango the evening of July 24 and started the continuation of the workshop on the 25th. During the two and a half week break in the workshop, detailed lesson plans were made so that we had specific goals for each remaining day of the workshop. Each day was to end with a concrete, mortar or insulation (perlite) pour so that it could harden overnight.

For the most part, we achieved our goals each day. The exception was the final two days. On Saturday, the 27th, we wanted to complete the chimney, but we did not. The final smooth mortar for the stove top was, however, completed and there was plenty of time to install the chimney on the final day. On the last day, we ran out of sand and, therefore, could not do the final mortaring of the interior gas path (takes about one hour). The good news, though, is that Leo Dan who did this on one of the pilot stoves, lives close by and knows exactly what to do.

All in all, the workshop went well. Eighteen promoters (attendees) participated, asked a lot of questions, learned a lot, tried a lot of processes/procedures and are ready to make more stoves to really learn the process well. We are returning to Seattle tomorrow night (Tuesday, 7/30) and plan to come back in September to work with the promoters as they build eighty-eight more stoves. Meanwhile, THP and the communities have an enormous task ahead of them: to finish purchasing all the parts, transporting them to the area, distributing them properly so that each community gets the number needed for its planned stoves and manually moving the parts from the closest road to each community (up to a three hour hike).