Spreading Solar Cooking

This guide, published by Solar Cooker International, is for people and organisations who wish to spread solar cooking to benefit people and environments. It tells how to introduce solar cooking to an interested community highlighting how local participants and empowerment are keys to success and to avoiding waste of scarce resources.

This guide is based on three refugee projects in Kenya and Ethiopia and a national project in Zimbabwe as well as experience collected from hundreds of individuals and grassroots groups promoting solar cooking worldwide. It discusses technology transfer methods, realistic time frames and patterns of acceptance. It includes language-free diagrams and describes hands-on learning activities. The guide acknowledges that each area is unique in needs climate and habit so this guide - like food preparation for solar cooking and the solar cooker itself may need modifying for best results.

The guide includes checklists for organising a community project: choosing sites and partner agencies, setting clear goals, finding adequate resources, and adapting well-tested teaching activities and solar cookers to local needs. It also includes checklist for setting up support services for an extended period of promotion and trouble shooting.

Contents include:

• A new case for solar cooking
• The challenge of technology transfer
• Planning a community project
• Learning exchanges
• Support services
• Evaluations