| Mexican President, Felipe Calderón Provides a Family with the ONIL Stove in Chiapas
Chiapas, Mexico - On April 7, 2008, President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa provided an Ecological ONIL Stove to a Mexican family in Zinacantán, a municipality in the State of Chiapas. The installation of the ONIL Stove is part of the project "Let's Share," implemented by SEDESOL (Secretary of Social Development.) The ONIL Stove is a component of President Calderon's program "To Live Better." According to Calderon Hinojosa, "the strategy consists of improving the quality of life of the population, particularly of the indigenous, equipping them with better alternatives to take care of their health, to feed themselves, to become educated, and to have jobs. The idea is to multiply much more support with the wood-saving stoves that also help people eliminate inside air pollution, so that they are not inhaling the smoke in the house which causes cancer to women. We truly want people to live better and with the stove, they will be able to save firewood and to cook without being poisoned, that also is to live better." When open-flame fire pit cooking is replaced by the ONIL stove, statistics show that respiratory illnesses substantially diminish, the risk of burns is eliminated, and the family's standard of living dramatically improves. The head of SEDESOL, Ernesto Cordero remarked, "those devices optimize [firewood] energy up to 90%, and save up to 70% of firewood [normally used by open-flame fire pits], eliminating the smoke inside the homes." HELPS International manufactures and distributes the ONIL Stoves in Central America, and, with the support of the Mexican Government, is planning to manufacture and distribute them. The need in Mexico is estimated at six million ONIL Stoves. |
