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Update from India October 2017
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Ann Peck, Executive Director
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Women and Children Wait for a Stove in India
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800 million people in India alone are affected by toxic smoke pollution from cooking daily in small unventilated houses with no chimneys. Together we can alleviate the suffering caused by this global health problem. Kids Health India provides the infrastructure that enables local people to install stoves daily and share that opportunity with students from around the world who want to experience village life first hand.
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Photo from our new smartphone with GPS that will enable local
installers to track our stoves and families long term.
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Your Donations at Work for A New Mother
A new mother suffers an accident at a construction site where she worked as a cooli carrying heavy loads of construction materials. She was injured by a falling rock, cutting the vein in her wrist and ending her employment as a temporary day laborer. The new cookstove will improve indoor air quality for the whole family, especially the mother and her newborn child at home, where she will spend her days now... unemployed.
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Students Get Involved at Kodaikanal International School
Kodaikanal International School (KIS) in southern India in the beautiful hill station of Kodaikanal has a unique approach to holistic education. They involve students in village projects every week that enrich their classroom education and encourage a global perspective.
The smokeless stove project was introduced to KIS by Ann Peck with invitations to speak in the social experience classrooms by former staff member, Bryan Plymale, and current department head, George Varghese. Students quickly picked up enthusiasm for going outside the school gates to get their hands dirty in real life interventions... and spread the word to their peers.
One student was heard commenting to her parents on the phone in the dorm after her first stove installation, "I saved a life today."
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Kim at work with Selvam, local installer, for KIS Social Experience stove project.
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KIS Alumni Get On Board with the Stove Project
Student stove installations are funded by Kodai Friends International, an alumni organization, and supplemented by student-run fundraising events. Current KFI president, Dr. Jeetu Nanda, personally accompanied Ann Peck in her jeep to a village home to observe a stove installation, just a mile outside the school gates.
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Elly Oenema, staff sponsor for KIS, and Joe Rittman (class of 1966) talk to KIS students who will spend their Saturdays installing stoves in local villages.
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Quote from Elly: "Although I have been running this project for 4 years, I am still shocked with the way people end up living and I wish we could do more than install a stove! And sometimes we do, like spontaneously buying new corrugated metal sheets so that it doesn't rain inside as well as outside. But however poor a person is, there will always be that cup of tea that they made for us and a smile after we are done with the work... that makes it all worth it!"
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Sister, Mother, Daughter Act
Teresa Teeves, a KIS alum, during her visit to Kodaikanal last year volunteered to go out with us on a village stove installation with her daughter, who was visiting India for the first time. They worked together to install a stove funded by Teresa’s sister back at home in the US, who wanted to be a part of it... a KIS family donation.
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Teresa charms a young man while he mixes cement.
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Teresa’s daughter takes a breather.
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Wish List: Bump it Up! 2018
A one- time request for donations to complete our new initiative this year:
$2,500 • survey • map • picture booklet
Every amount donated will move us forward
If you wish to participate in our new educational program, please note
"Bump it Up!" on your check or paypal donation to Kids Health India.
All other donations continue to install stoves.
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Details for "Bump It Up!" Fund:
An educational tool to share locally and globally
We have an incredible solution to the #1 global health problem of toxic smoke from household air pollution, smokeless stoves. Our goal is not only to keep installing stoves every day, but to spread our information to people around the world who suffer the same fate. So far all of our information is transferred orally, during the stove installations, installer to woman of the house. Our aim is to produce a booklet of information for key organizers in the villages... villages worldwide.
$2,500 needed for a 3-part educational tool:
- Information booklet: produce a pilot copy of our new educational booklet illustrating: 1. health needs, 2. installation process and 3. maintenance for new stoves. Printed locally.
- Assessment of family impact: train young women to go into the field with a mentor to conduct assessments of our stoves, before and after installing them, in Kodaikanal and surrounding villages.
- Mapping our installations: using our new smartphone with GPS, we can photograph all of our stoves for long term tracking. Phone purchased locally in India from a donation to our wish list request.
Look to the future. Donate this year to our educational fund Bump It Up!
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Spring 2018: Visit us in India with Catherine Frith, fundraiser and tour guide from Australia for a trip around southern India you will never forget. You will visit Kodaikanal to observe and participate in smokeless stove installations provided by Kids Health India. Contact: catherineskinesiology@gmail.com.
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Each smokeless stove installation costs $35 (US)
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Kids Health India, Inc. is a U.S. nonprofit that supports the installation of improved cookstoves for low-income families in southern India to alleviate the suffering caused by daily inhalation of toxic smoke from cooking fires. To learn more or get involved visit our website: www.kidshealthindia.com.
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230 stoves installed
benefiting 1,004 people
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