Guatemala Stove Project Events - theHumm November 2024

A group of volunteers will be heading to the highlands of western Guatemala from February 1–10, 2025, and while working with local masons to build cookstoves, will experience the resiliency and joy of the Maya people and witness their great need. When those volunteers return, they will continue the 25-year mission of the Guatemala Stove Project (GSP) — raising funds to help Maya families.

You too can assist the GSP in helping Maya families and fighting climate change this month, right here in eastern Ontario. Simply participate in the online auction taking place from November 4–10 at 32auctions.com/2024GSP where you can donate a stove, microloan or educational bursary, or purchase an interesting gift. The GSP will also be holding a fundraising dance at the Perth Civitan Hall on Saturday, November 16 featuring the music of Open Road and a silent auction.

Guatemala is among the poorest nations in the western hemisphere, and Mayan families living in the western highlands are the poorest of the poor in Guatemala. Like so many families living on the margins around the world, they cook their meals over open fires. Incredibly, fully 30% of the world’s population uses solid fuel to cook!

Cooking over an open fire creates two problems. First, smoke from cooking in a small, enclosed space creates toxic indoor air pollution that reduces the life expectancy of every member of the family. This pollution hits mothers and small children particularly hard, as they spend the most time near the fire.

The GSP raises money to fund cookstoves and works with NGO partners in Guatemala to have them built by Guatemalan masons of concrete, mortar and steel. The cookstove’s chimney removes the smoke from Maya households. The enclosed firebox shields children from open flames and greatly improves fuel efficiency. This saves the limited resources of families and helps to break the cycle of poverty. Over the past 25 years the GSP has funded the building of over 8,000 family cookstoves and 55 larger school cookstoves. These stoves have improved the health, life expectancy, and overall wellbeing of over 50,000 Maya people!

The second problem with cooking over open fires is its inefficiency and the release of large amounts of carbon dioxide. Efficient GSP masonry cookstoves reduce the amount of wood burned by half. This means half as many trees are cut down for fuel, which reduces local deforestation. It also means over 2 tonnes of carbon are saved each year by each stove! Over its lifespan each cookstove would more than offset the average carbon footprint of a typical Canadian (calculated at 14.2 tons in 2019). When considered collectively, GSP stoves will have offset over 175,000 tonnes of CO2.

A GSP cookstove is a very powerful “machine” to improve lives and fight climate change. To learn more about the work of the GSP, please visit guatemalastoveproject.org .

Shane Belanger — Having a Whale of a Time - theHumm November 2024

By Sally Hansen

Art… and Soul

Pareidolia is the tendency to see faces or other patterns in response to an ambiguous visual stimulus. If you’ve ever spotted a hidden dragon in the clouds, or the man in the moon, you’ve experienced pareidolia.

Blacksmith artist Shane Belanger uses his extraordinary gift for detecting elusive creatures in the random patterns of wood. The Lanark Highlands artist exploits his innate ability to create striking wooden and steel sculptures. He combines incredibly shaped pie......

Guatemala Stove Project Events - theHumm November 2024