Grace's Briquette Project
Grace Mwanguti is a Kilombero rice farmer in the Karonga District of Northern Malawi. She has a vision for starting a business to turn the waste product from rice milling into a useful fuel for cooking. This is not a new idea in itself, but Grace would love to bring this business idea to the rural communities where the women themselves will manage the business as well as use the fuel to cook for their families. The availability of this fuel will help ease the lives of women rice farmers who for generations have had the back-breaking job of collecting firewood in the hills. It will also help to stop the denudation of the hill slopes, itself a serious environmental and climate emergency issue, which the government made illegal in 2020. The project will give the women training in management and computing skills, and more confidence in their abilities in a society where women do not traditionally have equality with men.
Discussions with Grace and the Smallholder Rice Farmers Association (KASFA) led to a budget and a fully formed proposal to create two sites for briquette machines, one at the small community of Kapora and the other at the trading post at Lupaso. The cost of the project is £10,000 which includes £1,500 for sanitising equipment and face masks, and the first four months of running costs. Can you help make Grace’s vision come true?
Through supporting this project we will:
- Support the development of an emerging woman’s cooperative
- Make the daily lives of women less arduous
- Contribute to the manufacture of inexpensive cooking fuel for families
- Reduce the problems created by undisposed, rotting rice husks
- Help upskill members of this rural community, particularly women
- Support ongoing work against climate change by reducing deforestation.
Can you help make Grace’s vision come true?
