Ibeno Communities Showcase lessons, Successes in Fuel Wood Efficient Stove project
..Get Trained on Peace Building, Sustainable Environment
Fresh efforts were made recently to further lay the building blocks for local action towards cleaner energy in three communities of Ibeno local government area of Akwa Ibom State.
The effort was on the use of fuel efficient stoves, peace building and sustainable environmental practices, courtesy of Peace Point Development Foundation, PPDF with support from Energy Transition Fund, ETF.
The 3-day training which was held on Thursday, May 19 through Saturday, May 21 2022 at Okoroutip Community hall, Okoroutip, Ibeno local government area attracted over 80 participants from Mkpanak, Inuaeyetikot and Okoroutip communities.
Participants at the training.
In his opening remarks, the Coordinator of PPDF, Mr Umo Isua-ikoh said the training was designed to educate the communities on peace building education, the need for peaceful coexistence, and effective usage and application of natural resources in their communities.
PPDF Coordinator noted that the training will afford the communities the opportunity to be shown how to produce and use fuel efficient stoves in order to reduce high demand for fuel wood thus improving health and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the environment.
He explained that fuel efficient stoves heat more efficiently, they give off less harmful emissions, and they are generally less bulky than the traditional use of firewood for cooking.
Isua-iko said ” The use of Firewood can overwhelm some spaces, and the fuel efficient stove presents a great alternative. The lesser use of firewood prevents further deforestation and produces far less smoke than traditional fires, reducing the incidence of respiratory diseases.
“Furthermore, the design of the stoves reduces the safety risks, such as fires, when used inside houses. In addition, the materials used to make the mud stoves are available locally, helping to improve levels of replicability and cost-efficiency of the practice.”
The Coordinator who also took participants on Peace building noted that for peaceful coexistence and amicable conflict resolution, community members should learn to see things from others’ perspective, putting into cognizance how the affected party would respond to issues which affects them directly.
“ Everyone can see a problem from different angles based on where you are looking from, unless you put yourself in another’s shoes, you can’t feel or understand what they feel or see,” he said.
Training participants on Sustainable environmental practices, Executive Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation, HOMEF, Nnimmo Bassey charged communities to take responsibility in carrying out practices that would sustain their environment.
He pointed out that community members are saddled with the responsibility of forming alliances with other communities, organizations to report any environmental misnomer before it gets worse as they would be the most affected by any environmental hazard.
On his part, a resource person, Stephen Oduah, said the oil and gas communities need to act like citizen journalists especially in the monitoring of issues of gas flaring, oil spillage among other environmental ill-practices for timely correction to mitigate against further occurrence.
Oduah recommended that the communities should go beyond just reporting but also seek for the cause of the hazard, those involved and persons most affected.
Bassey Asuquo and Gideon Jaja who took participants on how to construct the stove using clay, sawdust and water with the aid of aluminium mould called on participants to maximize the availability of the resources within their domain to make the stove and also train others.
Meanwhile, participants were divided into groups to test-run the fuel efficient stove on the third day through cooking highlighting its effectiveness.
Commenting on the impact of the training and the difference of the stove with other cooking fuels, beneficiaries in their respective remarks noted that they now have expertise in producing the stove.
The Secretary of Ibeno Beach Management Board and participant in the training, Mr Emem Enyenemkpo, said although several trainings of this nature were brought to the community, it was the first time they were engaged practically.
He noted that from his observation, the stove is preferred to other fuels, especially its little wood consumption rate.
Enyenemkpo said while the use of the fuel efficient stove will contribute to reducing environmental pollution, relevant authorities should save their environment by putting a stop to gas flaring and oil spillage in Ibeno.
Women leader of Okoroutip Community, Mary Williams who expressed delight over the training noted that they hope to expand on the knowledge impacted by making a similar stove for their fish drying business.
Participant cooking with the fuel wood efficient stove.
Youth president of Okoroutip, Nsoh Nsoh said the communities are delighted over the fact that the resources for making the stove are easily accessible by them.
He added ” At first, during the training, we weren’t sure of the effectiveness, but now, we have seen that this is better than other sources of fuel we use.
” The good thing is that we can now make it on our own. We can train others and we are planning to expand it into our fish drying business even making it to sell”.