Between October 2009 and January 2010, MASEF performed cooking demonstrations in villages throughout
the cluster to market and sell all three types of Lakika stoves. It was during one of such demonstrations that Madame Aminata Coulibaly, the women body president, purchased a Nafacaman stove for 1500CFA (about $3.15).

In December 2010, a year after her purchase, MVP visited Madame Aminata Coulibaly’s home and found
that the improved cookstove was still in use. Madame Aminata told us:

“Before getting this stove, I spent 1250CFA (US$2.60) per week on a donkey cart load of wood. We have a large family and this wood would be gone in a week. During the rainy season, all domestic expenses come out of the women’s pockets. We buy the condiments for food. When the children are sick, it falls to us to buy their medicine. The men usually have money during and after the harvest season but sometimes, a husband’s harvest is poor and there’s nothing he can do about it. It then falls to the wives to provide for the family. With the Nafacaman, the wood I used in one week now lasts two weeks. This leaves more money for buying food and
taking care of the children. ”

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Straight from the airport to Segou, Mali where the Tiby office is located. The Tiby MV cluster comprises 39 villages accessed by a bumpy road about an hour from Segou, the regional capital. The Tiby site team already launched a stove program (pictured above) using locally-manufactured stoves. They’d tasked MASEF, a Segou-based NGO, with introducing and selling Lakika stoves.

Lakika in the Malian language of Bambara means original. Stoves with the Lakika designation are certified by AMADER – the Malian Agency for the Development of Domestic Energy and Rural Electrification) and GTZ – the German aid organization. To receive Lakika certification, a stove maker has to be trained by an AMADER partner organization. In our region, that partner is MASEF – the Social Action Movement for Education and Training.

My time here will be spent testing the various available stoves to get a clear picture of their efficiencies while conducting focus groups in the cluster to understand the energy needs and cooking practices of the Tiby MV cluster.