Joy Kitchens initiative is a program that brings together two sectors of the Jubilee Village Project: Housing and Energy & Environment. JVP has identified 16 women in Kager Village who are fully integrated in this program.
The program seems to have brought with it realities of life issues in Kager. The fact that it involves women, it has birthed new understanding and brought good news. It is the song that every woman is singing. A new JOY has come to the women of Kager village because the recipe of the Joy Kitchens Initiative is being followed: first (J)esus, second (O)thers and last (Y)ourself.
Joy Kitchens Initiative is a program that hopes to bring life and light into the Kitchen of homes in Kager. With this program on, JVP has been able to provide improved stoves (Upesi Jiko) to the 16 women. This was done to bring awareness on best energy conserving stoves, the results of this distribution and donation of improved stoves has had tremendous results.
Two weeks after distributing these Improved Stoves, these are some of the feed backs from the women.
(1) The Stoves preserves heat even after fires is put off. This was observed when one woman had her food on the Stove and decided to go to bed leaving her food half cooked, so that she cook it fully the next day. When she woke up, she found her food fully cooked.
(2) The Stoves use less than half the fuel as compared to traditional stoves. It also burns more steadily with less smoke compared to traditional stove
(3) The fact that it is portable makes it advantageous to those who do not have constructed kitchen, as they can easily move them to a sheltered place and cook.
(4) One woman explained how she used to look for waste plastic materials to burn in her traditional stove when it rains, to allow her lit her fire and cook. Since the stove uses firewood, the user remains clean compared to charcoal burning stove.
(5) It serves well with the most cooking pots, as compared with the three stone stove where you have to adjust based on the size of cooking pan one in using.
The women all agreed that transformation has taken place in their homes. The news has spread all over and we are overwhelmed with requests of those who want the stoves. The transformation with these has taken centre stage and has now exposed the real needs and problems faced by many women in Kager Village. JVP has also began its bi-weekly program of meeting with the Joy Kitchen women on Bible Study, educational programs on nutrition, hygiene, HIV/AIDS, food canning and others.
The Upesi Jiko improved stoves are one of the five improved Household solutions of the JOY Kitchens Initiative. It is the goal of the Jubilee Village Project to help deploy all five of these solutions in 100% of the homes in Kager village within a three year period. These five soutions include:
(1) Upesi Jiko improved stove
(2) Household water purifier
(3) Solar lantern
(4) Home canning
(5) Smoke hood / chimney
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