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A documentary of David Panxa Fabregas

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Based on an idea by Elena Carrillo, Jon de la Rica

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[music]

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My name is Maria Paola Duarte Exebarria and I live in the district of La Prusia.

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So I feel good with my family, my husband and my daughter and one I'm expecting, right?


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Here in La Prusia there are a lot of families that have, suffer from asthma, they are alergic to smoke,

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Hello, my name is Marta Alguera, I am asmathic.

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And I'm gonna reduce this illness I have, of the crisis of asthma, the asthma

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bothers me with the smoke, every time I cooked that smoke expanded everywere and that affected me.


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I am Yader, she is my wife Maria Isabel, I have three kids: Angel, Yajaira and Jorge.

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For my kids, for my husband, for my family and my neighbors too,

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because the smoke that extends everywhere gets the houses of neighbors and as it bothers us, so it bothers them.

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And one says how come this heat? One thinks that we harm the environment.

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Wood is not chopped, better it's planted.


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Hello my name is Vilma del Carmen Castillo,

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I live in La Prusia, a community from the Municipality of Granada.

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The little girl suffers from neumonia, they forbidden smoke, dust.

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She is 5 years old. 


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Smoke affects the girl, and deforestation, thus the environment.

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[music]

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During the day, as homemaker, I broom the courtyard, tidy the rooms, wash the clothes, cook;

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after that my girls come from school, I give them lunch:

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rice, beens, sometimes I give them meat, and sometimes cream with rice.


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My husband gets the firewood from the forest, from the trees, when the trees have dry branches then he cuts them.

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We go on weekends when he has time, we go on Saturdays to search for firewood and we get two big bunches of firewood.


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I cook in this kitchen of three rocks and firewood.


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Sometimes my oldest girl cooks, I was worried that the pot falls on her.

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The smoke affects the girl and me, not because doctors haven't tell me as smoke affects me.

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And the deforestation, the environment, we have to protect it.


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The Fogones (stove) project originates from an environmental perspective.

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As the project takes shape we realize, talking with the community,

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that for them the important issue is their health in regards to the smoke.


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The cooking conditions are without chimney at open-fire, and the women spend many hours in front of that fire,

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so obviously the smoke originates a lot of illnesses and long-term problems.


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The investment made in a home, where does it go to?.

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what started being an enviromental problem, ended up being a social problem.


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Well, the idea was to make a project of cheap, very cheap improved stove.

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We thought that we wanted it to be a project opened to the biggest number of people and for that it had to be vey economic,

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then we thought that what is most economic than the soil which is free.


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It costs 700 pesos, so for me it's cheap

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so we set as a goal that it cost less than USD 40 which is the price of a buddle, which is something any family has in their house, right?


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The idea was that people themselves build the stove.


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To learn to make the adobe, we had to take a course.

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To, to learn mixture of...to make adobe.

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In regards to adobe, I had never had this experience, I had idea of seeing it, but...

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experience of practicing with my hands, make a work like that never before.

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We always found with the challenge that...that they didn't feel capable due to the insecurity they felt.

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They said: I can't, I can't, I can't.


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I was desperate because she told us what we had to do for the test of raw, so,

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that if the soil had enough clay or little clay, the mixture, making things easy, we made things right.


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There were many people that when I was about to make the model, so...

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they helped because with what we have made was not enough.

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Thus I appreciate those people who came over to...when I needed it, because the same way they helped me, when the opportunity comes, I will help them.


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We made it among many hands, not only us. We put many hands to build it, so I feel proud to tell it.

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Sometimes, well, in fact we are not accustomed to work as a team, and...

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in the stove project, well, we learned to work as a team with the community.

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So the purpose with the participative design was that this stove, in addition to be effective, it adapts to...

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to what people was accustomed to, right?

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So they can cook as they used to do but in a healthier way and more economic in firewood.

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We built a pilot stove, and then they came and said 


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“no, we don't like this and that”

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then, we said well, it has to be changed, we have to change how to adapt the stove to the needs they have.

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I was one with the opinion of making the hole a little bit bigger.

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And where the cooked brick has to be placed, and we also said to change it for this plate that the stove currently has.


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They don't have economic provision, so,

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somehow the husband had to approve the investment of that very little money, because it was USD 25.

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I don't think that these women's husbands are 100% aware of the benefits of this stove.

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Because it is not a reality they have to live.

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As it was something of the women, husbands didn't care.


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There was more support of women than men. But indeed there were men, but there were more women.

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He thought that he was interested, that it was a beautiful idea, but he said he would support me and...

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few times he helped me, like two times he helped me to riddle the soil, nothing else.

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But he didn't help on building it up.

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Here in Nicaragua it is seen that women have to cook, she has to be in the house.

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I think it is an idea coming from machism and because it is also somenthing we are interested in,

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to me as a women and as a homewife, right?

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And well, I think that is the way for the project to last in time.

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the most important thing is not the number of stoves we have built but having,

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somehow, planted the seed to make these women understand that they can cook in a different way.

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If any neighbor or some acquaitance would tell me I need you to help me build a stove,

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well, I am willing to help.

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Yes, I feel proud of making it happen, because as I told you I learned things I didn't know and

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I have the option and opportunity in case another family or....or someone else who wants to have a stove, 


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I have the knowledge and know how to help them build it.

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At last I have it today, I feel happy and blissful, I am not cooking on the floor anymore,

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I'm going to cook with my new kitchen.


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So we improve our health.

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The ceiling is not damaged, the smoke goes upwards, no...

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the kids are not affected at all.

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and no smoke, the house doesn't look smoked as I have it.

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I am very happy with my stove, I think that everything it has as it is, it is good,

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it's according to my ideas, with my needs.

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They researched about how it can be made so that

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we overcome the difficulties that we had with our kitchens and

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they thought about us, well, about our health.


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I thought it was the same, something temporary, only to know the way we live...how we make it, our live, our, our living. 


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Not...never thought it was something so real.