Food is one of the basic requirement of every human being. Every family has to cook food two to three times a day. Cooking food requires a source of heating, to make the food palpable and to kill the germs. Unfortunately, even in the 21st century, many families still do not have access to cheap cooking fuel. Some families are too poor to even afford coal.
These families rely on forest wood, combustible rubbish, dried grass/weed and garden wastes for their cooking fuel. Since the male members of the family have to look for work, the job of collecting cooking fuel relies on the females and children of the house, who have to walk more than 10 miles or more each day to collect such fuel. During this task they face dangers, accidents and other perils. It is also due to this task that the girls and children of the family are not able to go to free schools.
The families cook their food on open fires that are created with the various kinds of combustible fuel they had collected. Burning such materials creates dangerous smoke and other air pollution that not only sicken the females but also affects babies and children in the vicinity of their mothers. Besides causing many newborn babies and pregnant women illnesses and deaths, other illnesses create a financial burden on the families, pushing them into further poverty.
Using new knowledge we can change this cycle of poverty. Since Pakistan has very good sunshine year round, a solar cooker can be used for cooking food without burning anything. The solar cooker is a simple reflective equipment, made from cardboard and aluminium foil. It reflects and concentrates sunlight onto a central blackened pot. This can raise temperature inside the pot up to 300 degrees centigrade, good enough for cooking and baking bread.
The only difference is that unlike cooking over fire, the solar cooker takes a long time to raise the temperature and cook the food. Therefore, it requires some training and practice and in time the user will learn to manage the cooking time of 2-4 hours, by preparing the meal earlier in the day.
If all these families start using solar cookers, the benefits are tremendous. Besides reducing poverty, improving children literacy, improving community health, improving new born and pregnant women health and reducing air pollution, the use of solar cookers will also reduce deforestation rate and improve the environment of the country. International organisations and government agencies should concentrate on educating the Pakistani population, especially the poor and families that use combustible material for cooking food.
Besides training, solar cookers should be distributed. They are a cheap product and can easily be manufactured locally. The government can even use the help of the Chinese government in solar cookers’ mass production as currently China is the biggest producer of cheap solar cookers and the biggest user.
WAFA S BASEER KHAN
Peshawar
