U.S. Army Soldiers are teaming with the Afghan Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts in Kabul, reducing the need to use wood as a fuel source. Through finding an alternate fuel source they are helping to create a cleaner Afghan environment while creating a more economical way of cooking.
The solution: a solar oven — a box with a glass lid and reflective panels that absorb energy from the sun, trapping the energy inside the box to heat food and water. Solar ovens can bake, fry or steam any type of food.
Volunteer Soldiers mentored the scouts in how to use the ovens by cooking meat, potatoes, rice, stew and both Afghan and American dishes. The ovens also make it easy to make tea, a common Afghan drink. Using the ovens to make these foods also kills bacteria and helps prevent illness.
“Burning wood is expensive, time consuming and causes pollution, leading to eye problems, miscarriages and even cancer,” said one of the project’s volunteers. “The pollution even ends up killing some people, especially children.” Not only do the ovens reduce pollution, the Afghans make the ovens themselves from their own resources, such as insulation and plywood.
U.S. Army Col. Felicia French, previous brigade surgeon Task Force Phoenix, started the project after witnessing Afghan children being burned over and over again by wood fires, getting scalded by water left over the fires and the impact of using wood in an environment where trees are scarce.
A Minnesota solar oven company sold the ovens at reduced rates to the U.S. Soldiers who then donated them to the scouts.
“Through using these ovens it will reduce the environmental impact of not having to collect wood and reduce the amount of kids getting burns from wood fires,” said U.S. Army Sgt. Samuel Eads, the non-commissioned officer in charge at the Camp Phoenix Optometry Clinic.
