Honduras

Mirador Clean Cookstoves

This project works side-by side with local families across rural Honduras to build improved cookstoves that use just half the amount of wood of a traditional one. When wood use is cut by half, so are CO₂ emissions.

Greenhouse Gasses
Reduced:

CO₂

Carbon Dioxide

Solution 21 in Drawdown – Clean Cookstoves

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What it does

Local Hondurans, who marvel at these stoves, say it best. They call the stoves Dos Por Tres, which is slang for “In an Instant.” In an instant, these stoves save wood, save time, eliminate toxic smoke from the household, and help the planet by saving miles of forests and reducing carbon emissions. Each family stove saves about 3 tonnes of carbon pollution from entering the atmosphere each year – resulting in nearly two million tonnes of carbon dioxide reduced by the project. Bottom Line: 400,000 rural families still need a new stove that will improve their lives and the environment. Your support ensures that each family will get one, and when they do, every year another 3 tonnes of carbon pollution will stop warming the planet.

How it works

Open-fire cooking is wasteful, dirty, dangerous, and slow. These improved cookstoves are durable, cost-effective and meet all the family’s cooking needs. They are custom built of brick and mortar with chimneys, and the rocket elbow design means that it takes less wood to cook more food more quickly. Families save money by buying less wood or save time gathering wood, rid the house of smoke and, in a Dos por Tres, help save our planet.

Benefits

Nearly 200,000 stoves created to date which benefits nearly a million people all tracked by GPS in a Salesforce database
79% reduction in carbon monoxide and particulate matter inside the home
18,000 hours of training a year focused on stove maintenance and tips to reduce fuel wood use
26 businesses and 172 jobs created
Families do not buy a stove, they co-invest in one. They provide bricks and mortar, the project provides construction, know-how and specialized stove parts

Challenges

Honduras can be dangerous due to corruption, drugs and human trafficking
In Honduras, the decision to get a cookstove is usually up to the man of the home, who may not think it is important. This can restrict distribution of the stoves to needy families

Who it helps

Rural families and the planet! This small domestic stove not only improves the lives of poor families, it reverberates globally to help save our environment.

One Step Can Be A Giant Leap

Read how one fine woman in rural Honduras, the delightfully enthusiastic Mrs. Reys, took a small step to make a huge change for herself, for her family and, ultimately, for all of us.

Testimonials

I am grateful to the Project for the stove. The plancha heats evenly. There isn’t any smoke now and it cooks fast. – Cleotilde Martinez – 4 family members
I am happy and cheerful because I save firewood; I do everything with a couple of sticks. – Aurelia Lopez – 3 family members
I’m grateful and willing that if the stove were to be ruined, I’d buy it or make it. Because my eyes hurt when cooking on a traditional stove, now I don’t even wear glasses. – Nelis Aleyla Figeroa Funes – 4 family members

Why we chose this project

Quite simply, because it’s proven to work, and local support in Honduras is overwhelming. After families get a cookstove, they receive three follow-up visits to their household to ensure it’s installed and working correctly. On top of that, this project uses an up-to-date data management system to collect household data that verifies every stove is working correctly. And as a nonprofit, all of Mirador’s proceeds are used to build stoves in Honduras without administrative or other costs from U.S. staff.

—Sid Yadav, CEO Global Offset Research