We assist local people to build safe, clean-burning, and affordable cookstoves in their own communities.
StoveTeam’s cookstoves are designed to be handmade by local people, using local materials, and they are perfect for cooking the foods that people in Central America rely on. These stoves eliminate toxic smoke inside the home, but they also save children from the danger of burns, prevent CO2 from entering the atmosphere, save families time or money on wood, and enrich local economies!
StoveTeam’s founder Nancy Hughes talks about StoveTeam’s mission and impact.
cookstoves IMPROVE HEALth
Indoor smoke is eliminated, while overall smoke is reduced by 86%.
Families are no longer in danger of burns, respiratory illness, eye and skin problems.
Families require half as much wood to cook, saving a great deal of time and/or money.
Cookstoves benefit local economies
Projects create jobs in the areas where they’re needed most, employing local people to help with stove construction and distribution, transportation, and project management.
Built from all local materials such as concrete, pumice and brick. Projects stimulate economic growth by purchasing all stove materials from local sources.
Families who purchase their wood often report a savings of 25% of their entire monthly expenses.
Stove owners often boost their standard of living by starting local businesses using their cookstove.
Cookstoves improve the environment
Each Justa model cookstove saves up to 12 tons of CO2, helping to ensure sustainable communities for generations to come.
Black carbon emissions are significantly reduced, especially crucial in the fight against climate change.
Wood use is reduced by 50%, saving forests from over-harvesting.
The Justa Cookstove
The Justa cookstove is built in-place inside the home, including a chimney.
Local stove technicians trained by StoveTeam build and maintain each stove, and each family is directly involved in building their stove, leading to greater community adoption and project sustainability.
The GPS location of each stove is recorded, and a regular maintenance and follow-up plan ensures they will continue working long into the future.
The Pérez Family with their Justa cookstove.
Maestros Comaleros Academy Program
The Maestro Comaleros Academy enables StoveTeam to train contract stove builders in our method of building, to ensure the production of excellent quality stoves, and to educate families to aid in their transition and adoption of the new technology. Our focus for 2023 is to recruit and train quality stove builders and provide secure, equitable and fair wage employment opportunities for the communities we serve, resulting in higher retention rates and increased stove placement
Our vision
Our dream for the future is the eradication of open cooking fires throughout the world: Communities and families thrive because they have been given back their health and their time. In our vision, cooking ceases to be a major contributor to climate change and deforestation, and there is universal global knowledge that cooking over open fires is hazardous to health and the environment.
Nancy Hughes
Founder of StoveTeam International
After the death of her husband and at the age most people retire, Nancy witnessed the damaging effects of open-fire cooking firsthand and vowed to make a difference. She transformed a small Rotary club project into the organization StoveTeam International. For her work, Nancy has been honored as a White House Champion of Change and has been featured on the PBS Newshour and in National Geographic. She is a CNN Hero, an American Mother of Achievement and the recipient of the prestigious International Purpose Prize.
“[Providing improved] biomass options for cooking and other household energy services can be an effective climate, energy and gender strategy that can immediately enhance families’ health and wellbeing – especially for women and children – and can help preserve the world’s vital storehouses of carbon and biodiversity.”
The Ecocina Cookstove
The Ecocina was the first stove developed by StoveTeam in 2007. It is a portable stove that can easily be made available for even the most geographically isolated communities. It is built locally using local materials in local factories, and it’s perfect for pupusa makers and other professionals who cook for a living and need to be able to move their stove. Each Ecocina cookstove has been shown to reduce CO2 emissions by over 10 tons!
Our partner projects offer a range of designs and colors, like this gray and orange combination by factory owner Elida Olivas in Nicaragua.
Our values
Respect for local practices
We empower the people and communities we serve as partners to help us design, build, and distribute the best stove for each location and situation. We adapt to the environment where we work, employing active listening, learning, collaboration, and respect.
We strive to avoid imposing our culture, mindset, or methods on the people we serve.
Collaboration
We engage all partners, communities and stove recipients to help us raise awareness about the global crisis of indoor air pollution, and to implement solutions.
We collaborate with NGOs and other partners to envision and implement the most appropriate solutions through strategic networking and collaboration on open-source projects. We advocate, invite, and support participation in finding and implementing innovative solutions.
Focus on what matters
We elevate traditionally underrepresented and marginalized communities, especially women, children, indigenous populations, and the extremely poor.
We remain nimble and prepared to adapt to new opportunities as they arise, through the implementation of different approaches, programs, and a range of stove models for different situations and regions.
We carefully steward our resources and the confidence of our donors by focusing on where we have the greatest impact.
Lynn Johnson for Ripple Effect Photography
