I take for granted every time I make a meal for my kids just how easy it is. How easy it is to turn on my stove, heat something up in my microwave, or bake a cake. But did you know that there are still many of us, 3 billion to be exact, out there who cook over open flame for every meal? That means there’s “1 in 2 of us have to walk over 10 miles and spend over 30 hours a week to collect wood, spend up to 35% of our income on purchasing fuel, expose ourselves to harm and smoke the equivalent of 40 cigarettes a day according to the World Health Organization (WHO) just to cook. The WHO has also estimated that harmful cookstove smoke is the fourth worst overall health risk factor in developing countries behind malnutrition, unsafe sex and lack of access to clean water and sanitation. Killing 1.6 million each year, women and children are disproportionately the majority of deaths related to indoor cooking smoke. Surprisingly indoor cooking smoke is the number 1 killer of children under the age of 5 (that’s ahead of AIDS, malaria, malnutrition and water-borne diseases).” — The Paradigm Project.
There’s a company I want you to know about and how I hope we can partner together to help them reach their goal to implement 5 million stoves in developing countries worldwide by 2020.
I’ve changed my business model so that with every portrait session we complete, we’re donating $40 (enough to give an entire stove to a family). With every wedding we photograph, we donate $80 — 2 stoves to 2 families.
Please check out this company and get excited with us about this amazing mission — The Paradigm Project.
photo courtesy of the paradigm project
I look forward to giving you great photos AND partnering together with you to help get more stoves into developing countries.
Megan
