Solar Cookers Come to Loki

Mark Thür presenting the solar cooker in Loki

Mark Thür, a Swiss National and resident Kenyan, arrived in Lokichokio at the invitation of UNICEF for the monthly nutrition meeting. He came to demonstrate the Solar Cooker to nutrition professionals working in southern Sudan. The Solar Cooker, which is crafted and supplied by the Kabiro Institute of Technical Training in Nairobi, is an environmentally friendly, cost effective way to cook and sterilize. It operates by trapping sunrays through two ordinary glass panes and a reflecting cover-lid. The cooker then changes the sunrays into heat and cooks the food. It does not require any other kind of fuel. It is clean, safe and saves time, as it does not require supervision or regulation. Several foods can be cooked at the same time. Mark demonstrated its use by cooking a lunch of beef, vegetables and rice. A Swiss couple donated a small amount of funding to get the initiative off the ground. Thirty cookers were made available free of charge for NGOs who wanted to try them out. It was suggested that these cookers could be used to sterilize water in feeding centres for use in the treatment of dehydration. There is also a possibility that the design could be adapted to facilitate the cooling of larger volumes of food necessary in Feeding Centres. The cookers themselves can be bought for a small sum. The Kabiro Institute who manufacture the cooker is a non profit making organization established in 1990 "to enable the youth in Kenya and outside generate their own income by providing them with technical skills". The light and easy to assemble cooker could be of particular use in refugee situations where there is concern about environmental degradation due to deforestation as refugees scavenge for fuel.

For more information contact: Kabiro Institute of Technical Training, Kawangware Location P.O. Box 21679, Nairobi. Tel: 02 568023