Chulika

For ages, women in rural India have struggled with smoky stoves that blackened their lungs and drove their families out of the kitchen even as the women toiled in isolation to feed their families. Rural women and children suffer from debilitating respiratory diseases as they are exposed to very high levels of indoor air pollution for 3 to 7 hours a day over many years.

Chulika is an energy-efficient biomass cookstove that emits little smoke and uses just half the wood that a traditional chulla requires. In the long run, women and children will experience less health problems with Chulika. And as an immediate gain, women will spend less time and money on getting firewood. A village woman’s reaction to Chulika was heartfelt: “Before, because of the smoke, my family would grab their food and run outside to eat. Now my family now sits around me while I serve them hot food. For the first time, my kitchen has become a home!”

Chulika is the first of iSquareD (i2D)’s efficient and clean technology products and practices for rural India. i2D is a spin-off from SAMUHA, a development organisation that has been working with vulnerable people in North Karnataka since 1987.