La Paz International Foundation
Stove Project Destination Thailand!
Brief Overview of the Thai Stove Project
Our goal is to supply the materials for and train local Thai people in the building of simple stoves with chimney's in the most poverty stricken areas of Northern Thailand.
How many stoves will we build? That is entirely up to you and how much money we raise! Our goal is to supply the materials and training for 50 stoves our first year.
Did you know . . .Poverty forces over 3 billion people on our globe to have open fires in their huts or homes for cooking and heating purposes. Indoor pollution is serious. According to the World Health Organization:
- Around 3 billion people cook and heat their homes using open fires and simple stoves burning biomass (wood, animal dung and crop waste) and coal.
- Over 4 million people die prematurely from illness attributable to the household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels.
- More than 50% of premature deaths due to pneumonia among children under 5 are caused by the particulate matter (soot) inhaled from household air pollution.
- 3.8 million premature deaths annually from noncommunicable diseases including stroke, ischaemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer are attributed to exposure to household air pollution.
- “Having an open fire in your kitchen is like burning 400 cigarettes an hour,” says Dr Kirk Smith, a Professor of Global Environmental Health from the University of California at Berkeley. “Unfortunately," he continues, "we have not made a lot of progress in the past decades and household air pollution is still the largest single health risk factor for Indian women and girls.” Research shows that the situation in Thailand, particularly in the poorest areas, is just as bleak and improvements have not advanced significantly in the last decades.
Open-fire cooking ranks as the leading causes of death globally, ranking higher than the number of annual deaths due to malaria, HIV/AIDS, diarrheal diseases or tuberculosis!
YOU CAN HELP by supporting our Thai Stove Project that will teach local coordinators in the poorest northern regions of Thailand to build simple stoves!
Open Fire Indoors
Typical indoor open-fire situation, normally people cook, eat, sleep and commune in the same very small area. Children are particularly susceptible to disease and burns as they sleep and play when infants and toddlers in the area directly surrounding the open-fires.
Indoor Stove
Some house in the northern hills of Thailand have adobe like exteriors with wood for windows and doors, others home are constructed of all slat-wood like the home in this picture.
Taksin, Thai Project Director
Taksin is our Thai coordinator with tremendous development experience and who communes in some of the poorest regions of Northern Thailand. We met Taksin on our 2014 journey to Thailand.