NGO engages women in cooking competition to promote use of cooking gas
NAN-H-60
Gas
Bwari (Abuja), Nov. 9, 2017(NAN) Africare, a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), on Thursday in Abuja engaged some women in Bwari community in a cooking competition to promote the use of cooking gas as against harmful stove and charcoal.
Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), at the event, Dr Doherty Orode, Africare Country Representative in Nigeria said that the initiative tagged: “Upgrade to Gas” was necessitated to discourage the use of harmful fuel to cook.
This, she said, poses as a threat to the health of women and children in the community.
According to her, the demonstration intends to showcase the benefits of using cooking gas as well as illustrate the frustrations of using charcoal, kerosene and firewood to cook.
” A lot of women complain that gas is expensive, it is not safe to use, others are just not comfortable using it.
” Today, we intend to demonstrate, in order to give these women the opportunity to compare and see how easy it is to use this cooking gas.
” It would also show how quickly food cooks, tastes and also , how clean the cook comes out after using it, compared to the women who use charcoal and fire wood.
” If you look at it, this black smoke that covers the back of the pot as well as the wall of their kitchen is what they inhale, which is harmful to their health.”
Orode said that a 2016 WHO report showed that each year in Nigeria, over 38, 000 women die as a result of exposure to toxic cooking fuel like charcoal, firewood and kerosene.
She noted that Africare Nigeria intends to explore other ways to assist the health sector, curb the threat while also saving the environment in the process.
Also speaking, Miss Ann Ejila, the organisations Communications Assistant, told NAN that a number of field officers from the organisation have been educating some of the women in community in the past four months.
According to her, the officers engaged in a house-to-house campaign for the use of cooking gas against other cooking fuel.
She said that the organisation has also made efforts to provide reliable gas vendors, who would sell both cylinders and liquid gas to the women at a subsidized rate.
“We are not promoting any brand, all we want is to show these women that aside using this fuel, they also need to know that safety is paramount.
” To tell them that buying from a reliable vendor protects one from leakages, or whatever leads to explosion of some of these cylinders as well as tell them that buying from major distributors would be guaranteed.”
One of the participants, Mrs Elizabeth Haruna said that the exercise was helpful and educating.
She said that it was a welcome idea that would go a long way to change women’s mindset towards saving to buy and use cooking gas.
Another participant, Miss Ajuma Omah said that the exercise was impactful but the women would need more support from their husbands to change their format of cooking.
” Some of them do not have the resources to buy the product; they may have to get money from their husbands which may linger but I am sure, most of them prefer using cooking gas. ”
NAN reports that Africare is a US-based organisation, which seeks to address African development and policy issues to build sustainable , healthy and productive communities.
The organsiastion’s “Upgrade to gas” campaign is funded by the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves to increase awareness ,adoption and use of LPG cookstoves among households in Nigeria.
NAN also reports that over 20 women participated at the event. (NAN)
DVK/AFA
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Edited by Felix Ajide