Soroptimist International of Europe’s President Elect, Maria Elisabetta de Franciscis, has spoken about the role that solar energy can play in empowering women and girls at a side-event during the 58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, which opened in New York today. SI co-hosted the event with Solar Cookers International, an NGO that works to spread
solar thermal cooking technology to benefit people and environments
through a combination of projects, partnerships, advocacy and outreach

. 

"As a University Professor, I can
only endorse any technology that relieves women and girls of their heavy
domestic and vital duties, such as food preparation and wood collection, but
most importantly allow girls and boys to attend school and enable them to
improve their life standards", said Maria Elisabetta. 

The SIE President Elect highlighted the importance of education within the
context of solar cooking

went on to describe a partnership between Soroptimists in Denmark and Kenya, which provided LED lamps, solar chargers and fireless cooking stoves to women in an isolated community at the top of the Great Rift Valley escarpment in Kenya. The project not only reduced the use of fossil fuels but also improved the health of the women and their children, and has provided a source of income to the participants, who use the solar chargers to charge neighbours’ mobile phones. More about the Women and Climate Change project.

Energy poverty is a significant barrier to women and girls’ education and empowerment in many parts of the world. 2.4 billion people do not have reliable access to electricity and about 3 billion rely on solid fuels (traditional biomass and coal) to meet their basic needs. Women are particularly affected because of their role in collecting fuel, cooking and other domestic work.

Speaking at the CSW event, Dinah Chienjo, Director of Friends of the Old, explained that solar cooking can relieve the work burden for women and girls, provide opportunities for enterprise, provide free energy for water pasteurisation, reduce respiratory diseases and burns caused by traditional cooking fires and reduce violence against women as they do not need to travel long distances gathering biomass fuel.

Julia Greene, Executive Director of Solar Cookers International, described how solar cooking technology has progressed over the last 25 years, with new uses for solar cookers including water heating and sterilisation for medical purposes.

Soroptimist International clubs around the world are supporting solar projects as part of President Ann Garvie’s See Solar, Cook Solar Appeal. The Appeal will support Soroptimist projects all over the world that educate women about renewable energy and empower and enable opportunities for them, by providing solar lanterns and cookers. Project sites are due to be announced in April.