Project completion: new kitchen at Bambay Primary School
We are excited to announce that another project has been completed!
In partnership with the Livingstone Tanzania Trust (LTT) we completed the construction of a new inclusive and environmentally-friendly cooking and storage facility that will ensure the provision of daily hot meals for the children and teachers at Bambay Primary School.
During 2019 many meetings were held with the community by LTT to learn about the challenges that Bambay Primary School was facing and a school development programme was created to prioritise the activities that needed to be carried out.
When COVID-19 hit the project was put on hold and that is where Made With Hope decided to offer support so that we could address the temporary kitchen and storage concerns and bring this project to completion as soon as possible. This was a great example of multiple organisations coming together to reach a common goal.
The old “kitchen”: an unsafe open air fire
Bambay School used to depend on the three rock fires placed under a rickety roof for their cooking needs. Three stone cooking fires, traditional in rural Tanzania, are open fires where the pot is placed very close to the fire itself. It is a method that is not hygienic, safe nor efficient. Furthermore the unstable structure built to provide shelter for the cook was unsafe and was blown down by gusty winds, leaving the cook to try and cook beside a classroom whilst being exposed to extreme weather conditions such as extreme heat and heavy rains.
In the absence of storage facilities, the firewood needed to run the stoves and the items necessary for the recipes were kept in the back of classrooms. Without any focus on the importance of handling, preparing or storing the ingredients properly these items can easily become spoiled. This is particularly dangerous because it won't always be possible to tell from the taste or smell of the food but bacteria, fungi and viruses can cause stomach aches, diarrhoea, vomiting and fever. In addition to that, logs that are not properly dried and stored will be receptacles for all sorts of insects and eggs that, in turn, attract vermin and rodents leading to unpleasant odours and flies .
The temporary kitchen: keeping the children nourished
When the old structure collapsed it became urgent to equip the school with a temporary shelter and a fuel efficient stove so that the hot meals, which ingredients are provided by the community, could be cooked for students and staff on a daily basis. Although this was a great solution, it could only ever be temporary as there was still not proper food storage available or a place to cook without being subject to the weather. This is where MWH stepped in to try and help complete this project and turn it into a proper kitchen in partnership with LTT.
The new kitchen & storage facility: a hot meal for every student, every day
The construction of the new cooking facility
With the temporary kitchen in place the construction of a proper fit for purpose kitchen started. LTT and MWH aims were clear, we wanted to build a structure with facilities to:
- provide a safe working environment for the cook
- prepare daily hot meals
- safely and securely store food and firewood
It was key to ensure that the logs were kept dry and the ingredients couldn’t be stolen whilst still being easily accessible by the cook.
During the construction work, not everything went according to plan but that’s where adaptive management made a difference. The design from the local engineer had to be adjusted due to both structural needs and constraints related to the building site being closely surrounded by the water tower, the old water tank, a classroom and a neighbouring property. Without dwelling on technicalities, we are proud to say that the constructors and the community were able to overcome all the challenges and we even built ramps and future proofed the structure by making it wheelchair accessible. We also built a dish-washing station adjacent to the building with a dedicated sink.
Eco friendly stoves
Key to the new facilities are the stoves, designed to allow multiple pots to share a single fire, significantly reducing the amount of firewood. By enclosing the fire and directing the heat, the kitchen is less dangerous and more efficient. The cooks were surprised to find that they had to completely change their cooking time as these new stoves are so much faster than the previous ones. The new facility also has a very handy hatch to serve the food through!
Staff training
The construction came with sessions of training provided to the cooks to make the most of the new facility. There was a real focus on reducing the firewood consumption and therefore LTT gave a lot of tips and tricks to make sure these efficient stoves were used properly by the personnel, such as increasing use of dried wood. Lighter, dry wood is easier to transport and produces less harmful by-products like ashes or unhealthy emissions that pollute the air (a third compared to wet logs). It also produces heat more efficiently compared to using wet wood resulting in a more environmentally-friendly burn. After all this training, firewood consumption was down by 50%!
The training proved to be successful even if some pots were melted in the process of learning how to use the new stoves and understand how to reduce the heat! New pots will be provided but this reaffirms the importance of providing training alongside building new and efficient facilities.
The Impact of the Project
Providing a place to cook a student’s lunch is vital to their education. Without a nutritious and healthy lunch the students' performance is likely to decrease, noone likes a hungry tummy! The completion of this project ensures that staff and students attending Bambay Primary School can focus on teaching and learning, with renovated energy, knowing that they will receive a nutritious meal cooked in a hygienic environment by a trained cook every day. The school meal programme in combination with the construction of the new facilities has already hugely impacted the attendance and greatly reduced truancy on a regular basis. Alongside this, the fuel efficient stoves will continue to reduce the amount of wood needed to cook and help slow down deforestation. Eating well will truly help these children to lift their mood, energy levels and ultimately concentration to focus on getting the quality education they deserve.
“Before it was hard to cook, it was a horrible situation but now the situation is dramatically improved, I thank you very much.”
Thank you!
Written by Elena Bella