Date established: 1998

Partner: Honduran Association for Development (AHDESA)

Number of stoves built: 9,500

Types of stoves built: Eco-stoves, Justa, Rocket

Program history: TWP has worked in more areas and helped more people protect their environment in Honduras than any other country where we work. Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, though rich in natural beauty.  The affect of this dichotomy is that even though nearly half the country is forested, Honduras lost 10% of its forest between 1990 and 2000. Logging, clearing for agriculture, and cutting fuelwood are the major contributors to this rampant deforestation.  TWP’s fuel-efficient, healthy stove program coupled with our watershed protection and crop diversification projects are helping to ease the burden on Honduras’ precious natural resources.

After Hurricane Mitch ravaged Honduras in 1998, TWP and AHDESA teamed up with the Aprovecho Research Center and Rotary International to work with a women's group in the town of Suyapa and adapt fuel-efficient combustion principles to local, traditional cooking habits. The result was the Justa stove, named after community leader Doña Justa Nuñez. The Justa stove is made out of mud and brick and built directly in beneficiaries’ homes. Since 1999 we have built over 8,500 Justa stoves in Honduras.

The stove project in Honduras took a major leap forward in 2005 when TWP and partner AHDESA received the Ashden Award for Renewable Energy. Coupled with a large grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the award allowed a major expansion of the micro-enterprise stove program. By using this market-based approach, we hope to spread the improved stove technology more widely in Honduras. Through the program, local entrepreneurs are being trained to build and market fuel-efficient, healthy Eco-stoves in and around the capital city, Tegucigalpa. These stoves help reduce deforestation, and improve the health of women and children by removing toxic smoke from the kitchen. This program is part of TWP’s new focus on mass-producing improved stoves to help as many families as possible to protect both their natural resources and their health.