The Paradigm Project: What a Difference a Stove Makes

Episode 1: Woodwalk from The Paradigm Project on Vimeo.

Two and a half billion people in the world use open wood-burning fires as their method for cooking meals.  Food preparation over an open fire is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes.  The toll taken on the respiratory health of women and children is at times fatal with a million dead each year.  Deforestation is another catastrophic impact rendering areas uninhabitable.

The Paradigm Project aims to deliver five million stoves to people around the world by 2020 in an effort to help alleviate the problem.  The organization is a low profit company:

"for sustainable change with the overarching goal to empower developing world communities with project ownership and a path to determining their own future rather than relying on handouts to keep them going." The Paradigm Project

And anyone can become involved.  A donation creates the opportunity for a family or village to afford a stove. The stoves are not given away.   Families purchase a stove package that includes training to use it, marketing, transportation and distribution.  Donors provide a subsidy making the stove affordable.

Checkout The Paradigm Project's Plan of Progress and see the potential impact and difference being made right now.