Visit from the World Vision

On Friday morning a group from World Vision, and their partner community from the south of Nepal came to see stoves we have installed in Pokhara, in readiness for their 15 stoves coming.
It was a mixed group of health workers, project staff and community people.
We took them first to the Shantiban (urban slum) and then out 18kms from Pokhara to Lekhnath Khudhikola (rural slum).
They were quite surprised at the conditions people were living in the urban slum, all the family crowded in small single rooms with breeze block walls with a tin roofs, often held in place with heavy rocks.
The urban slum setting was more similar to their area in layout, although slum homes in the south often have 'wicker and daub' walls and thatched roofing.
Our Stoves Promoter Devi Singh came along and gave the visitors more practical information about the stoves in use, centred around the preparation of the famous Nepali dish of 'Daal Bhaat Turkari' (Lentil soup. boiled rice and veg curry).
It was noted by all that people living in the slums can't afford lentils nowadays and often just make a watery curry and boiled rice, thus missing a valuable source of protein. To make matters worse people often use potatoes (cheap and filling) as a base for the curry, creating an unbalanced meal. CWS is planning in a wider dissemination of stoves to encourage the stoves users to use the savings made from the stoves to buy better food.