There is a revolution taking place within rural Peruvian Villages. A year round clean-up is taking place, and it does not involve a few dusters and a can of polish! This type of cleaning involves back breaking hard work and determination.

Students and volunteers, from all over the world, have come together to work with Sheffield based Sustainable Development organization ProWorld in order to install clean burning stoves throughout the Sacred Valley.

In many of the high-altitude communities in the Sacred Valley, food is prepared over an open fire in the home. Ventilation usually consists of a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape. This however, is not a very efficient way to avoid smoke filled living conditions. The result is a very unhealthy atmosphere for people to be cooking and living in because improper ventilation leads to a host of respiratory illnesses as well as eye maladies.  In addition, much of the wood used to fuel the fire is from native trees which are rapidly decreasing in number. The cleaner burning stove project is the implementation of a stove that provides proper ventilation and burns wood more efficiently.  With the use of these designed stoves, living conditions are significantly cleaner due to less smoke in the home.

Volunteers have already installed over 300 stoves and ProWorld have made a commitment to install an additional 450 traditional stoves in seven new Sacred Valley Communities.

Andrea Leitch- UK Marketing Director quotes “Our volunteers love the fact they can build the stoves alongside the villagers and really make a huge difference to the lives of many rural Peruvians- It is great to think that because of the hard work of the volunteers we have helped to give people the best Spring Clean they could ask for!”