Sun24 is a nonprofit that helps the poorest of poor in developing countries with farming, cookstoves and solar lights.
The Problem
570 million smallholder farmers using primitive farming practices and most burn their crop waste. 3 billion people cook over open-fires or barely contained cookstoves, usually with wood as their fuel. The consequences are enormous:
- 4 million people die each year due to smoke from cooking over open-fires – more than tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS combined..
- In Africa, women and girls spend an average of 2 hours per day collecting firewood, exposing themselves to sexual assault.
- Each open-fire cookstove gives off almost as many climate-damaging emissions as an average American passenger vehicle.
The Solution
Sun24 trains farmers to make biochar while greatly reducing smoke from burning crop waste. Biochar can double their crop yield. Women can use metal bands to hold bundles of maize stalks or other crop waste, allowing the upright bundles to be lit on top and burn cleanly without tending. Rocks beds (free and simple) in three stone cookstoves cut fuel usage by a third and cut smoke by more than half. Millions of families in Africa are using rock beds.
Results So Far
Sun24 partners with the Catholic Church and farmer and self help group associations to train farmers to make and use biochar and to train women to use cooking bands.
We are currently training on making biochar in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Malawi. (November, 2022) We expect to expand throughout Africa in 2023.
“I have 9 people to take care of. Being a large family, looking for firewood was a daily activity. When the children come back from school, they have to go and look for firewood as a daily routine. The first day when I tried the rock bed, miracles happened in my home. The small twigs collected for firewood could not be finished. Half of the heap remained to be used the following day. It was unbelievable. Time for looking for firewood has been reduced to weekends, creating more time to children to read their books.”
Contact Us!
If you’d like to be involved in our work, we’d be delighted to hear from you.
Support Sun24
With every $10 you donate, 100 women will be trained to use cooking holes. (Sun24 has no paid staff and almost no overhead. All donations go directly to training of women to use cooking holes and to make biochar.)
Sun24 is a non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization.
Or, send your check to:
Sun24, Inc., 1815 W. Jetton Ave., Tampa, FL 33606