This is a community wide project to build wood burning cooking stoves designed to reduce current fuel consumption and produce only a limited amount of smoke. The project's primary purpose is to lower the high incidence of respiratory disease that now affects 60% of the local population.

Local families will supply the adobe and labor to build the stoves. Funding provided by donors will be used to purchase bricks, chimneys, and cement. The project staff will offer participants informational sessions regarding water treatment, trash disposal, and good nutrition to improve general health and nutritional standards.

Response

Thank you so much for your contribution!

I love the Pacific Northwest and plan on moving back there when I finish my service, and it's great to find support and hear from RPCVs back home. Moving from green and rainy Seattle to the rural Peruvian desert has been a big change, and it's taken me a long time to adjust. At 9 months into service though I'm feeling a lot more comfortable, and quite happy with my stoves project.

I've really been amazed at how well my project is going; when I finished up the informational sessions many women asked for more, and the nurses asked me for the names of the participants so that they could do inspections and follow-up.

I was chosen to host an IST event at my site, so on my birthday my 18 fellow Peru 16 WAT/SAN volunteers came from all over Peru with their community counter-parts to build the first 4 stoves! It was a circus, but somehow everything worked out and the families are very happy with their new stoves. I am now awaiting the rest of my funding so that I can continue with construction. I've decided not to work with professional masons, as I feel it's more empowering and satisfying when the families build the stoves themselves. I also just love getting my hands dirty with all that mud and adobe!

Unfortunately, I lost my camera back in June so I don't have any pictures, but my father will be bringing me a camera in September. If anyone would like to come down and build a stove themselves, I should be working on them for the next 5-6 months, and I live a mere 1/2 hour from the famous Nazca lines.

Thanks again,

Nikki Eller, Peru 16

Santa Cruz, Ica

Funds for this award came from distributions of the Beryl Brinkman Memorial Fund which was created with generous gifts to WCPCA and whose sole purpose is to support humanitarian programs. Beryl was a PCV in Afghanistan (1967-69), a founding member of WCPCA, and one of its most tireless leaders for over twenty years. The awards given in her name will honor her legacy of fighting poverty and building peace.