Please join us at CITRIS for a presentation from Sarah Collins, “Improving the World with Wonderbags”
Designed by Durban, South Africa-based entrepreneur Sarah Collins of Natural Balance and poverty activist Moshy Mathe, the Wonderbag is aimed at societies where fuel is expensive or time-consuming to gather. The Wonderbag is a non-electric, heat-retention cooker that allows food that has been brought to a boil on a stove or fire, to continue cooking for hours after it has been removed from the direct fuel source.
People in developing countries have diminished access to affordable, clean sources of cooking fuel and/or cooking systems, which leads to energy poverty for families, and a drain on a country’s natural resources (firewood and charcoal are leading causes of deforestation in many countries), and alarming health risks from burns and toxic fumes. Compounding the problem is the fact that many diets in these countries consist of foods that require long cooking times – dried beans, cassava, root vegetables, tough pieces of meat etc. The longer a meal is on the stove or fire, the longer a person spends cooking, breathing polluted air, adding water to the pot, and adding fuel to the fire. We’ve found in South Africa, Rwanda and Nigeria that, on average, people in lower income levels can spend up to 1/2 of their day cooking, and 1/3 of their income on cooking fuel alone. There’s got to be a better way.