You are usually welcomed by silence during the sunrise and sunset time at African homes. Women and children will be busy fetching firewood for cooking. This raise a question,  Will this firewood last forever? Absolutely no, there is need for renewable sources of energy I remember grandmother telling me that when she was growing up there were dense forest but now there is nothing left for us to see and enjoy the green. 

Impacts  are being felt in the energy  sector particularly  by  women, children  and sometimes  by  men  who need energy  for heating and lighting purpose. Usually the children have no time to study as there are fetching firewood and also the women remain traditional to their duties not having time to undertake certain income generating projects. All this can be solved by introduction of renewable energy resources which are clean and affordable. 

Today will be concentrating on the renewable energy that will help the community to lessen the problems and situations above. The Zimbabwean School Environmental Club introduced the fire less cooker. The fire less cooker is also known as the Temp bag helps  reduce on  energy  demands  indirectly  as  it conserves  energy. It can  be used for cooking and cooling. The food is  cooked on  a traditional  stove, before it’s  transferred to the fireless  cooker. The cooker is  well  insulated, keeping the heat in the food and allowing it to continue cooking inside.  The Temp bag is made from the plastics and kaylite and it can be homemade as the materials are readily available.

The temp bag have many benefits such as it reduces fuel use by 40%. More so the fireless cooker women can  cook nutritious  foods  that previously  would have required lots  of  fuel  for simmering such  as  beans, rice  and whole maize. Furthermore it helps the modernisation of women as there are freed from cooking to other duties which are income providing reducing poverty. 

I visited the Mashonaland Central Agricultural Show 2019 I was able to visit another exhibitor tent where they were demonstrating the use of solar products. I came across a solar cooking system that was affordable. It was a huge shiny parabolic dish with a cooking pot as shown in the picture inserted. Benefits which they explained to us were it was cheap, unmonitored cooking where one can cook long cooking time food such as pig trotters, samp and beans. Heating of water during the day and use it to cook and bath reducing women and children duties. 

Furthermore there is biogas system which is generally using organic waste as fuel. Around markets there is a lot of tomatoes, vegetables and fruits on ground decaying and this is all fed into a biogas digester to produce biogas for lighting, heating and pumping water. Learners in Zimbabwean schools are being taught how to build the digesters and maintain them  leading to its great adoption in the rural areas.

The benefits that comes with biogas technology are time usually  used for firewood collection  and cleaning pots  is  saved hence families  will  have time for  other    household chores  and socializing. More so farm  crops  are significantly  increased from  using organic fertilizer which  will  in  turn  provide food to  the  family  and money  from  selling some produce and families  can  make money  from  selling organic fertilizer from  the digester. Furthermore jobs can be create in the building and maintenance of the biogas digester.

All these above innovations are changing the lives of Zimbabweans and creating a sustainable future. This is benefiting the people of Zimbabwe in modernising the role of women and youth empowerment as there are freed to perform other duties which generate income. 

References

"Clean Energy", A Resource Book for Secondary School Environmental Club,  by Mukuvi Woodlands. 

Ministry  of  Energy  and Power Development (Online) http://www.energy.co.zw