Stove Team expands efforts in Mexico, Honduras, Salvador, Guatemala

The local economies in the towns where StoveTeam has sponsored factories have improved because stove materials have been purchased locally, but there is more. Tonya and her friends in Honduras have opened a new catering business; the school near the factory outside of San Miguel de Allende has been painted and received new playground equipment and supplies; and poor students from Nahulingo, El Salvador have received scholarships from Gustavo’s factory.

When Ana Luisa and Marco Tulio of the EcoComal factory in Guatemala learned that the local weavers were not sending their children to school, they started their own. Ana Luisa, who had previously taught in Jocotenango, started teaching a few young children in a donated room. The demand was huge, and using the proceeds from stove sales, she and her husband were able to rent a larger space with a schoolyard, and provide more services. The school has classes for the very young and each student is prepared to enter the public school system after third grade. On our November visit, our volunteers will see many children, not only learning to read and write, but with lunch cooked for them on an Ecocina.

StoveTeam is excited to announce the final approval of a Rotary Global Grant for a new factory in Loma Caliente, a small village outside of Morelia, Mexico. The grant represents a collaboration between StoveTeam International and Livermore Valley, Cupertino, Corvallis and Morelia Universidad Rotary Clubs. This new stove production facility will be operated by Lorenzo Apolinar Guerrero Rangel–known as Don Poli–as an expansion of his business producing decorative bricks. This is the eighth stove factory StoveTeam has helped to establish since 2008.

The collaboration began a year ago as a result of a speech Nancy Hughes made to Livermore Valley Rotary Club in California. The club expressed an interest in helping families in and around Morelia, which has a large indigenous population needing fuel-efficient stoves. Subsequently, members of the StoveTeam staff visited the Morelia Rotarians and Don Poli’s factory site. While they were in Loma Caliente, they visited a carpentry shop started with the help of the Corvallis Rotary Club, and were delighted that it was busy producing wooden spools for electric cables.

Additional support will come from the Rotarians of San Miguel de Allende, who have been so pleased with how their factory is going that they have offered to be of support to the factory in Morelia.

We could not make this happen without your support and the support of dedicated Rotarians throughout the world.

Visit the StoveTeam site for details on how you can help existing projects.