95% of Uganda's households rely on firewood and charcoal as their main sources of fuel for cooking and heat.

Air pollution from indoor cooking fires has become one of the leading causes of death in Uganda -- where an estimated 13,000 people die every year from health issues related to inhaling smoke emitted from their indoor cooking fires.

This has a significant impact on women and girls as they are often the ones inside working over these open cooking fires. 

In 2021, we built 2,080 energy efficient cookstoves in households. These cookstoves also vent to the outside of homes, taking the smoke outside and require drastically less fuel. They are also more environmentally sensitive as they burn about 80% less wood than a traditional open cooking fire.

These 2,080 new cookstove helped save 5,000 tons of firewood a year from being gathered and prevented over 9,000 metric tons of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere.

Learn about Waterschool’s work with installing safe toilets - another initiative that combats both environmental and health problems in Uganda with an inexpensive solution.