Summary
Watch the children at Uphill Junior School learn how to make simple eco stoves that are cheaper and healthier to use
Anyone for Stovies? *
We are all very aware of how limited Earth’s resources are, and how important it is to protect and conserve what we have on the planet.
In Uganda they have been promoting the idea of using less firewood for cooking for some time, not only to conserve their natural resources but to make cooking over open fires safer and healthier.
Many houses in the rural areas do not have the luxury of a built in kitchens with oven and hob. Here cooking is done over an open fire outside or possibly in a small hut next to the house.
Collecting firewood is a never-ending task for most people in Uganda and every day you pass people of all ages on the road carrying huge bundles of wood on their heads.
Our school is situated next to Kibale forest which is one of Uganda’s National Parks. It is home to one of the largest colonies of wild chimpanzees in the world, forest elephants, monkeys, birds and many butterfly species. Local people are banned from collecting wood from the forest as it will destroy the habitat.
To help the children at Uphill understand these problems there are trainers working in the area who can show the local people ways of building simple eco-stoves which burn less wood, emit less smoke and are safer to use for cooking.
During our visit in February 2026 Liddy watched the Uphill kids get a hands-on lesson in making small eco-stoves from bricks and mud…with a generous helping of cow dung added.
The children got stuck in, literally, wielding huge hoes to mix mud, and large knives to cut bricks to size.
They carefully lay out the bricks to fit their pot size then cover the whole thing with mud before adding the final layer of cow dung. The stoves dry out in the sun and then are ready to be used.
The firewood is fed into the small hole left at the base so the burning can be controlled more effectively.
It has been shown that these stoves use only a quarter of the amount of wood used as an open fire and consequently emit far less smoke.
Once they go home our kids are able to show their families how to build these stoves and save their family income.
Healthier, cheaper and helping conserve local resources has got to be the way to go.
Tags: lessons for life, life skills learning, simple eco stoves, Uphill Junior School, using less firewood to cook
