Smokeless Cookstove Foundation

The Smokeless Cookstove Foundation is based at C-202 in the Sai Simran building. We are right across from the Metal Box Company in Deonar, Mumbai. If you know the area, you know it is quite industrial and busy. Our whole focus is on the way people cook their food. A lot of folks still use old stoves that fill their small kitchens with thick smoke, which is really bad for their lungs. We spend our time working on better ways to burn wood or coal so that the smoke doesn't stay in the house. It sounds simple, but it takes a lot of trial and error with different stove designs. We have some prototypes in our office that we are always tinkering with. We go out to different settlements and talk to the women who do the cooking to see what actually works for them. There is no point in making a stove that nobody wants to use. Deonar is a place where you see a lot of people struggling with basic things, so we try to keep our solutions practical and cheap. We don't have a big laboratory, just some tools and a lot of soot on our hands. The noise from the Metal Box Company across the street is constant, but we just get on with our work. It is about making sure families can eat without breathing in poison every single day of their lives.