Starting in 1992, the mission was to establish a sustainable solar cooking and water pasteurization program to solve Nepal’s (and other developing countries') severe health, environmental and energy problems. Solar cooking was not practiced before in Nepal. Our efforts succeeded in establishing a solar program in 1992. Our successful strategy has been to: find “Champion” organization(s); create awareness with public/private demonstrations; build infrastructure; and provide continuous follow-up on programs each year. We also train people how to use, design and fabricate solar cookers, water pasteurizers, dryers and heat-retaining boxes; advise organizations how to become successful in solar/sustainable technologies; help start new NGO’s and businesses; identify reliable workshops producing quality solar devices on time; and teach responsible Eco-tourism with trekking organizations and lodge keepers. Allart Ligtenberg designed a 400-gram solar backpack cooker for effective dissemination and a 3 kg collapsible parabolic (1 m) cooker for remote and rural households, and trekking/expedition groups. This solar backpack cooker got on top of Mt Everest in 2007 to make a statement to the world. The 1 meter parabolic cooker is fabricated in Nepal. In 2000, new mission items were added, which include the "integrated cooking method" that adds fuelwood-efficient, smokeless “Rocket stoves” to solar cookers.
Further integrated strategies advancing MDG's (Millennium Development Goals) include: solar space heating, Photo-Voltaics, efficient WLED lights, biomass briquettes, composting, toilets, and offering complete health, energy, environment, and women empowerment solutions. "Planting Renewable Energy seeds (ideas)" with individuals, businesses, NGO’s, INGO’s to disseminate solar/sustainable technologies in Nepal, Mongolia, Indonesia, Mexico, South America, Afghanistan, US.
Contact Information
Our Focus
In Nepal we have initiated a Renewable Energy School teaching all RE technologies, plus carpentry, metalworking and small-business skills. A skilled workforce of RE entrepreneurs will disseminate RE technologies and create jobs. The target population is all-inclusive: male and female, rural and urban, disadvantaged groups, people with disabilities, young and old, plus educating (I)NGO's, and government. We also help establish micro-enterprises. Since 2002, initiatives with Rotary International through Allart Ligtenberg's Los Altos Rotary Club have initiated Rotary International Matching Grant programs (16 in Nepal, 3 in Indonesia, 4 in Afghanistan, 2 in Mexico), resulting in training, fabrication and distribution of solar/sustainable devices, clean water,sanitation, sustainable agriculture, empowering women and improving quality of life in health, environment, income generation, and poverty alleviation for 44,000 people. In Nepal this resulted in improving 24,000 peoples lives with solar cookers/waterpasteurizers/dryers, improved Rocketstoves, briquette stoves and gasifiers. Various NGO’s adopted my programs. For example a project that I helped kick start with NGO Vajra 11 years ago for the Bhutanese refugee camps (110,000 refugees in eastern Nepal) became very successful because now most refugee families cook with parabolic solar cookers combined with heat-retaining boxes.
Our Experience And Interest In The Four PCIA Central Focus Areas
In our programs we give people the choice of which technologies or devices they want to get and be trained in, with the understanding that they have to contribute a small percentage (5-10 %) towards the costs of training/devices. It is always easier to get people excited about improved fuelwood or biomass briquette stoves that use fire, than solar cookers and water pasteurization. However, solar cookers are in many aspects superior over fuelwood stoves: they do not pollute the environment at all (inside or outside), allow unattended cooking for box/panel cookers, provide non-carcinogetic/vitamin rich food , and reduce drudgery/burden of collecting fuelwood and help gender issues of girls (going to school instead of collecting wood). Through discussions and educating about the advantages social and cultural barriers can be addressed.
We are very interested in market development efforts in improved cooking technologies, both solar and biomass. We work with a number of NGO's/businesses to advance the technologies and start micro-enterprise businesses. By producing devices in a profitable way will lead to sustainability. We put together new initiatives as outlined above.
We are working with an organization that is standardizing protocols to measure stove performance, and pollution measurement. We have experience in wafer fabrication toxic monitoring.
I started these programs because of the terrible air pollution in kitchens (as well as outside) that I have seen in developing countries. The problem is not only the smoke, particles and toxic gases emitted by open fire cooking, but also the problem of burn victims (often kids that are totally scarred for life), whole villages burned because of sparks getting on thatch roofs, the burden of getting/carrying heavy loads of fuelwood (by typically girls/women), and the costs of buying cooking fuel, wood, charcoal, etc.
Automatic pollution monitoring equipment and documentation could help convince governments and INGO's to take action. Not only stove performance and its pollution, but also the whole kitchen layout, ventilation, chimneys, etc can be researched in a more effective way.
Relevant Publications or Studies
See all the links in website http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Allart_Ligtenberg
Our Contribution to the Partnership
We are very interested in sharing our experience, and networking and exchanging information to advance knowledge resulting in "best practices" that help solve problems addressed in the MDG's.
