Here's an article about a wood cooking stove for the developing world designed to be healthier than an open fire. Healthier is good. I've sat in a hut filled with smoke watching women boil water for dinner many times. The smoke can be oppressive. Often I've wondered if there is a better way. But something about this doesn't sit right with me. Shell is paying for its development. So there must be a lot of money in it. It's expensive for the target market. And it seems like it's just a fancy version of the Maputo Ceramic Stove" which can be made locally by locals. The difference between developing a product and developing a solution may be slight, but it is naive to think there is no difference. The industrial economy wants people to be consumers. It says, "If something is wrong in your life, you can buy a fix." If Shell wants to do good it should teach people how to make these stoves using local materials. This reminds me of a Chinese Proverb I once heard. Something about teaching a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime versus selling a man a fish and you've got his money in your pocket.
1.27.2008
Here's an article about a wood cooking stove for the developing world designed to be healthier than an open fire. Healthier is good. I've sat in a hut filled with smoke watching women boil water for dinner many times. The smoke can be oppressive. Often I've wondered if there is a better way. But something about this doesn't sit right with me. Shell is paying for its development. So there must be a lot of money in it. It's expensive for the target market. And it seems like it's just a fancy version of the Maputo Ceramic Stove" which can be made locally by locals. The difference between developing a product and developing a solution may be slight, but it is naive to think there is no difference. The industrial economy wants people to be consumers. It says, "If something is wrong in your life, you can buy a fix." If Shell wants to do good it should teach people how to make these stoves using local materials. This reminds me of a Chinese Proverb I once heard. Something about teaching a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime versus selling a man a fish and you've got his money in your pocket.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I think this brings up a tough issue. Should the designer/company have a commitment to public health or profit? Kurt Hoffman witnessed a public health issue and decided to find a solution, but with that solution came the possibility of profit. On the one hand all of this time and money has gone into the project with no return and the price seems to be reasonable at this point, but what happens if you sell these women a stove, and next you want to sell them attachments, pots, etc - whatever else you can convince them they need because now they have this new stove and that just isn't enough.
“The women and the families that are buying them are no different from us,” the Envirofit program coordinator, Jaime Whitlock, said. “They want to buy something they’re proud of.”
I'm not sure that we all want to buy something we are proud of. Yes, in terms of creating a safer environment to cook and live in is something to be proud of but the "tupperware" approach seems manipulative and also seems to lose track of the original purpose - to help people:
He said that with the right products and a “Tupperware marketing strategy,” in which women make house calls to talk about the stoves, a change might be imminent.
“Let the women who have been using it for two or three months talk about it,” he said, “and people will accept it.”
Post a Comment