In rural Ethiopia, most families still cook over open fires. This means hours spent collecting wood, breathing in harmful smoke and damaging the forests that communities depend on. For women and girls, it’s a daily struggle—time-consuming, unsafe and exhausting. Our baseline found that nearly 8 hours is spent each day by a family collecting firewood and cooking.

Vita Impact is changing this with simple, affordable cookstoves that save wood, cut smoke and free up time. As of April 2025, our programme has:

• Reached 316,000 people with cleaner, safer cooking
• Helped families purchase 127,000 fuel-efficient stoves
• Saved over 29 million hours of labour—mostly for women and girls
• 149 villages participating in the stove project
• €380,000 revenue generated by local fuel efficient stoves manufacturing cooperatives.
• 29 million drudgery hours saved-mostly by women and girls
• 280,000 tonnes of wood saved
• 170,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions saved

This is about much more than cooking. Open fires harm health, waste time and drive deforestation. Women are hit hardest. They collect the wood, cook the food, and suffer the smoke. Many girls miss school because they’re helping at home.

The stoves we provide reduce wood use by up to 60%. They cut toxic smoke and make cooking faster and safer. Each household receives two stoves—one for baking, one for boiling. Vita subsidises the cost the stoves to ensure they are affordable to families. We work with women-led enterprises to make and distribute the stoves using local materials.

Each stove saves over 1.6 tonnes of CO₂ a year. These savings are verified and sold as carbon credits through the Vita Green Impact Fund. The money goes back into the community—supporting more stoves, more jobs, and more environmental action. It’s a cycle that keeps growing.

This model works. It’s simple, proven and community-led. With the right support, we can scale it further—reaching more families and helping women lead the way to greener, healthier and fairer lives.