The Community Energy Malawi (CEM) organisation has called upon people in the country to adopt cooking using sustainable renewable energy technologies which helps mitigate issues of climate change.
The remarks were made in Lilongwe during a Leaning event on the ‘Phikirani moganizira chilengedwe‘ project which the organization is implementing in the country with the help of the Malawi government, UNDP and the government of Japan.
Briefing on the project’s activities CEM Advocacy and Communication Director, Wonderful Mkhutche said so far they have managed to reach out to a wide range of audiences in awareness of renewable energy technologies as well as plant bio- gas systems in places such as prisons, Zoe Orphanage, Mai Mbambande and Zomba hospital.
“We also distributed chitetezo mbaula’s to a number of people in community areas. The aim is to influence positive behavioural change towards usage of renewable technologies for cooking,” he said.
Representative of UNDP, Timothy Ranja emphasized on the hazardous effects of using firewood that women and children are exposed to, not to talk of the challenges they face in sourcing the firewood which has proved to be unsustainable, costly and pose health threats due to smoke.
“Engagement of faith-based organisations in the implementation of the project has also helped in reaching out to a wider range of people on awareness of using sustainable renewable energy technologies,” said Ranja.
Despite facing challenges of biogas systems vandalism, resistance to the adoption of the systems and difficulties in technical know-how, the project has managed to tackle some of these challenges by re-doing trainings on the systems and engaging in more awareness campaigns.
CEM Country Director, Edgar Kapiza Bayani said the project has managed to distribute 1,000 chitetezo mbaula’s to Lilongwe and Zomba communities and distributed 1,700 Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) from their initial plan of 1,000.
According Bayani, statistics worldwide shows that about 675 million people do not have access to power supply and the use of sustainable renewable energy technologies for cooking helps in tackling difficulties they face when it comes to cooking.
The on-going project is currently focusing on sustainable renewable energy technologies of chitetezo mbaula, biogas and liquefied petroleum gas.
