Solar Sister entrepreneur Fatma Mziray delivers a clean wood cookstove to Zainabu Jabiri. Zainabu met Fatma sometime earlier when Fatma was showing the clean cookstoves to women in her village. She liked the stove and decided to get one. She loved the idea that it used a lot less firewood, that it is compact and that it is also a nice looking stove. She sold firewood and charcoal to save money to be able to purchase the stove. Fatma talks with Zainabu and then shows her how the stove works. Near Arusha, Tanzania. Fatma Mziray is a Solar Sister entrepreneur who sells both clean cookstoves and solar lanterns. Fatma heard about the cookstoves from a Solar Sister development associate and decided to try one out. The smoke from cooking on her traditional wood stove using firewood was causing her to have a lot of heath problems, her lungs congested her eyes stinging and her doctor told her that she had to stop cooking that way. Some days she felt so bad she couldn't go in to cook. Fatma said, “Cooking for a family, preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner I used to gather a large load of wood every day to use. Now with the new cook stove the same load of wood can last up to three weeks of cooking.
“With the extra time I can develop my business. I also have more time for the family. I can monitor my children’s studies. All of this makes for a happier family and a better relationship with my husband. Since using the clean cookstove no one has been sick or gone to the hospital due to flu.” Fatma sees herself helping her community because she no longer sees the people that she has sold cookstoves have red eyes, coughing or sick like they used to be. She has been able to help with the school fees for her children, purchase items for the home and a cow.
“What makes me wake up early every morning and take my cookstoves and go to my business is to be able to take my family to school as well as to get food and other family needs.”
Fatma has enjoyed being a part o
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