Señora Digna lives a happy life with her husband Jose Francisco in Rio Grande, Honduras. Jose Francisco works all day in the fields of their farm, and Señora Digna works all day to take care of her kids, cook meals, collect firewood. She has seven kids, so it’s always crazy busy.

Then Señora Digna, a kind and affable woman, developed a rare and potentially fatal medical condition called Stevens Johnson syndrome, which can lead to respiratory failure. Her doctors warned her not to do any strenuous work or to be around the smoke of a stove fire. Really?! How? She had to collect and haul firewood every day from the nearby forest. She had to cook on an open fire for seven kids and for Jose Francisco! ¡Eso no es posible! Her world seemed to collapse.

Señora Digna does not believe that it was a mere coincidence that, soon thereafter, she attended a community meeting and heard about the improved cookstoves offered by this project. They reduce firewood use (saving forests) and ventilate harmful smoke from the house (saving people). She immediately had one constructed. No more smoke in the house. Jose Francisco and the children collect what firewood they need. She is joyfully thankful for this project helping her build the stove because it has “saved her life.”

With your support, more than 170,000 improved cookstoves have already been installed by this project, eliminating 450,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions every year.

Thank you for supporting this project, and Señora Digna, in 2018.