New kitchen and store at Bambay Primary School
Old kitchen - clearly not fit for purpose!
Temporary kitchen
The wind huffed and puffed and blew the Bambay kitchen down, leaving the school's cook to shelter and cook beside a classroom, which clearly does not work in the rainy season. The open fire is also hugely fuel inefficient.
With support from donors and the local community LTT built a temporary shelter and fuel-efficient stoves so that school meals (100% provided by the community) could continue to nourish the students and teachers.
But now, 2 years after the big bad wolf demolished the initial kitchen, we have built a proper kitchen around the existing fuel efficient stove. To the left is a firewood store so we can keep firewood dry all year round. Through the middle gate is the kitchen with secure access to a food store and the window has a hatch to serve the food through. It was all built in partnership with the community and in consultation with local engineers.
The school and the community are delighted with the progress that this has made and are delighted that food and firewood are no longer stored in classrooms.
The Training
The stoves are fuel efficient and reduce the firewood consumption by over 50%. The school cook is trained in their use and works
By keeping the lid on the pots he contains the heat and can reduce the firewood.
By simmering instead of boiling the porridge, he can reduce the amount of firewood used.
By using dry wood the energy heats the pot rather than first removing the moisture and using dry wood generates less smoke. Less wood is used.
By sharing the heat through a channel there is no need for each pot to have its own fire - reducing the amount of firewood
By enclosing the fire, the heat is directed purely to the pot and energy is not lost, thus reducing the amount of firewood needed.
The cooks find that they need to adjust their cooking time as using these new stoves is much faster than before.
Learnings
Some cooks found that if they fail to reduce the heat, as they are taught, the heat melts the pot and new ones are needed. Reaffirming the training is so important.
The Chimney, if redesigned could be used to smoking fish and meats, but this has not been tried.
New kitchen with firewood store and food store
New fuel efficient stoves, one for teachers meals and one for student meals