[Stoves] How to make people do what they don't want to do? Like listen to advises, or contribute to the good use of stoves.

[Xavier Brandao]

Dear all,

 

Paul Anderson's idea on advising people to cook outside made me think about
something that happened lately. My experience is still short in the country,
but I think it may be representative of the problems stove projects can be
confronted.

 

We built and sold an institutional rocket stove for an hospital three months
ago. When we first met them, the kitchen staff was complaining about the
smoke, and to a lesser extent about the wood consumption. Now they have the
rocket stove which make very few smoke and saves a lot of wood. They said
they liked it, and I believe they do.

But several times we visited them, and we noticed they weren't using it that
much. The reason was that they are supplied big pieces of wood, and they had
to cut them prior to using them in the rocket stove. The feed chamber
opening is a 20 X 20 cm square. With stoves, it is often necessary to make
this opening rather small, to limitate excess air entry. So the staff kept
using smoky stoves, with their huge feed chamber opening.

The men among the staff want the women to cut the wood, it is traditionally
a women's task I think, but women say they are not paid for that and they
have enough work. The head of the kitchen staff asked their supplier to cut
the wood, but I am not sure they reached an agreement. The hospital could
pay a lumberjack, but it needs to go through administrative procedures. For
info, one water tap has been leaking there for years according to my
associate. It still is and no one never cared to find a plumber. The "not my
job" syndrome. Let's hope it won't be the case for the wood issue, we'll see
how all this evolves.

 

People lacks proactivity, and this greatly hinder progress. This story shows
how just a simple obstacle could destroy a whole building. Someone said "a
lot of efforts can be lost because one last effort hasn't been done". Just
because no one wants to cut wood means they keep using unhealthy stoves. In
Benin, people are careless with security. They drive bikes without hats, men
drive when they are so drunk they can barely stand, they can eat food which
has been under the sun for hours, store oil barrels close to house
dwellings, etc. They are used to take risks. I think even if you tell people
smoke is very bad for health, if it is too uncomfortable to cook
differently, they'll keep on cooking how they use to. Here: breathing
unhealthy smoke is preferable to cut wood.

 

We could also say the small hole for the feed chamber is responsible for all
that, so wood-efficient stoves with large feed chambers, if they exist would
be more appropriate.

In another hospital, they were supplied smaller wood logs, so there werent
any problems.

 

We already concluded the product has to be perfect. Nothing should be left
to the customer. Everything should be taken care of in the design of the
product. We reached the same conclusion when working with solar : only an
on/off switch should be left to the user. The good old Keep It Simple Stupid
principle. Unfortunaly, stove technology is an ungrateful technology. Some
design principles have to be respected. The user has to make a few efforts
after the stove is delivered. This is the part the stove producer has no
control upon, and it puts the project at risk.

 

I want to know if some of you may have experienced the same thing. What were
the barriers? Maybe they were cultural? How can we best prevent them? How
can we make people listen to our advises, in fact apply them? Can we make
stoves so simple the user would have nothing to do?

 

Regards,

 

Xavier

 

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