Nicaragua

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*April 2024: New book - Stories of Solidarity, Solar Cooking, and Women’s Leadership in Central America, 'Cultivating a Revolutionary Spirit' is an endearing story about a US tenured physics professor, the inimitable Bill Lankford, who visited Nicaragua for two weeks in 1984 and stayed, in one form or another, for decades. It’s a heart-warming story about how organizations formed to spread solar ovens became vehicles for women to empower and defend themselves in repressive macho societies. Details and purchasing information... 
*July 2016: The S.T.E.V.E.N. Foundation has decided to take a hiatus, and step back from undertaking new projects. They will remain available to share their expertise. Due to the success of the foundation's free distribution of small quantities Mylar reflective material, their supplies have all but been exhausted. They will continue their support of Cornell University students who partner with the women of Las Mujeres Solares de Totogalpa in Nicaragua, as they promote solar cooking with cooker building workshops and operate a solar restaurant. Read more in the 
*March 2014: How solar energy empowers women, youth in rural Nicaragua - Forty years ago Sabana Grande, a small community in northern Nicaragua, was ravaged by war. Now you will find people sitting under solar-powered lights, eating solar-cooked chicken, and drinking smoothies made by a bicycle-powered blender. Sabana Grande (pop. 2,000), in the mountains of Totogalpa, about 20 miles from the Honduran border, has embraced a solar culture that has transformed the community. Read more...
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*December 2013: Adelante Con El Sol: The Solar Women of Totogalpa is a short documentary set in rural Nicaragua that follows a group of women through their journey toward a sustainable lifestyle. The film was created by CalmDog Productions. Watch this excellent twenty-two minute film, and help the producers receive the Audience Choice Award.
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*October 2014 Solar Projects Foundation for Nicaraguan Women is awarded the Energy Globe World Award for 2013.
*May 2013: The small Nicaraguan Women’s Solar Project Foundation FUPROSOMUNIC has, since 2006, installed 664 solar cookers in nine municipalities. Solar cooking saves money, reduces deforestation, and is healthier for women than breathing wood smoke. The group focuses on providing the poorest of the poor with stoves discounted as much as 90%, thus requiring an investment on the part of the women of as low as US$20 paid over eight months. The stoves can save about USD 13 in wood purchases monthly. The program has already received two awards and has been nominated for the prestigious Global Energy Award. Like other solar cooking programs such as Solar Cookers International, the women construct their own cookers and learn how to use and maintain them under the direction of FUPROSOMUNIC. Solar cookers are useful for other things besides cooking food such as drying fruit and medicinal plants, disinfecting clothing, and purifying water. Some of the women are using the stoves to dry nuts and other products to sell. The foundation was formed through Swiss aid in partnership with a Nicaraguan sociologist. The biggest obstacle for the program is to overcome the initial skepticism of the women. But some are won over by their ability to easily and cheaply prepare traditional dishes, such as came en bajo [a traditional dish based on cooked beef and vegetables], that normally require a great deal of firewood to cook properly. Cooking on cloudy days or after sunset can be done on improved charcoal cookers also promoted by the Foundation. These cookers are efficient and allow for frying, which the solar cooker does not. - The Nicaragua Newsletter
*February 2013: Cornell University students working as the Solar Cooking Team, visited the Solar Women of Totogalpa and Grupo Fenix in March 2012. The project for this year was to design and build versions of cookers intended for easy prefabrication and shipment. The standard cooker design is 30 inches square (exterior), 12 inches high and weighs roughly 60 pounds. It is an effective cooker, but is not easy to ship, especially with its heavy and brittle double glazed top. The team brought two new designs. A main design parameter of the cookers was to be able to use materials readily available in Nicaragua and with methods already understood. The first cooker used wooden framing, fiberglass insulation and sheet metal typical of the cookers produced at the Centro Solar. This cooker weighed about 50 pounds and used Reynolds cooking bags stretched on thin metal frames instead of glass for the top glazing. Both metal cases were hinged to allow easy folding. The cooker was partially disassembled and packed in a cardboard box which was checked onto the airplane for the trip, to prove its transportability. It was reassembled after arrival in Sabana Grande. The second cooker used interior and exterior sheet metal boxes framed with light aluminum angle stock. The boxes were separated by a layer of fiberglass board insulation. The tops of the two metal cases are secured by screws to a rectangular wooden frame, which supported the door/top. The door/top also used cooking bags stretched on thin metal frames as glazing. This cooker weighed approximately 30 pounds and was brought inside a suitcase. Read more at 
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Centro Girasoles Proceso, an organization associated with Bill Lankford's long standing work in Central America, is located in Nicaragua and was active in training women in the construction and use of solar cookers for several years. Ongoing training and follow-up was also provided. In the view of the Proceso groups in the Central American countries, solar cooking is a critical element in the overall process of improvement of life for Central Americans. Centro Girasoles Proceso reported that the cookers were used over 80% of the time once the training and follow-up were completed.
Centro Girasoles Proceso has also worked to educate other groups working in Nicaragua about solar 
cooking. One of these groups was Grupo Fenix, an organization with the goal to provide a range of renewable energy resources in the country. Through the knowledge shared by Centro Girasoles Proceso, Grupo Fenix developed skills in teaching low-income people how to build simple, effective, and low-cost box cookers. Some ovens built were built in a day and were small and made of scrap cardboard, newspaper, aluminum foil, and plastic. Others took up to a week to construct and were larger and built using wood along with other durable materials. They learned, as many solar promoters do, that follow-up with new trainees is an essential element to ensure longevity of a solar cooking program. Grupo Fenix were also trained in pasteurizing milk and water, sterilization techniques, and how to identity the most efficient solar cookers for particular needs.
Working with Terrasol, a US/Nicaraguan volunteer project, Grupo Fenix also promoted photovoltaic lighting. In addition, they used the abundant rainfall, which feeds streams and rivers, for small-scale generation of electricity to supplement that which comes from the national system, as this often fails before reaching remote rural areas. 
Grupo Fenix established a "nano-loan" program in order to assist local people with acquisition of the range of renewable technologies that they provided.
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We came across this paragraph, from a student service learning project, while researching an article for the Solar Cooker Review. The student was working with a solar photo-voltaic company in Nicaragua, where some solar cookers have been introduced. Judging from the description we assume the cookers are large parabolic or box cookers. In any case, this is a good reminder of one reason why solar cookers (especially if they are not the appropriate type for a given population) are not always as readily accepted and used as we promoters would like.
:"A strong example of a renewable energy not working as it was intended was apparent in Nicaragua. Solar ovens were viewed as an answer to women cooking all day in the poorly ventilated and smoke filled kitchens. It was believed that solar cookers would allow the women to not spend as much time in the kitchen as well as eliminate the need to collect wood for the current stoves. The problem lay in the fact that the solar cookers did not fit into the culture appropriately for them to be utilized effectively. The culture of Nicaragua had always dictated that the social center for a woman to meet and talk with friends would always be the kitchen so that they could talk as they worked. Wood burning stoves gave this ability as they required a person to always be around cooking or tending to the fire. With solar cookers, the oven was outside and because food took longer to cook, there was more downtime where the women would end up sitting around in the kitchen anyways. The time to cook a meal with direct sunlight in a solar cooker was usually 50% to 100% longer and a much longer preparation time was necessary, because of this, the solar cookers had to be repositioned so that they were getting the most sun possible. This task was difficult for women who could not move the solar cookers on their own because they were too large, and the number of women, were few who knew how to move them so they would get direct sun. Dinner was served usually when it was dark out, as it is in most cultures, so the food would have to be prepared beforehand and somehow reheated for dinner. Because of these problems, it became apparent solar cookers would not become a technology that would fit well into the culture of rural Nicaragua."
See also
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* The Sabor Solar Cookbook from Grupo Fenix shows how to cook Nicaraguan foods in a solar cooker: ( or )
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* Solar cooker dissemination and cultural variables
==Resources==
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*September 2015 (Nicaragua): - Gemma Botica Sevilla
*August 2015 (Nicaragua):  - Short report by the Association pour le Développement de l'Energie Solaire detailing reasons they have moved away from solar cooking and toward fuel-efficient woodstoves in Madagascar
*July 2014:  - Gordon Bauer
===Reports===
*January 2017:  - Susan Kinne
*September 2015: - Gemma Botica Sevilla
*July 2014:  - Susan Kinne
*January 1990: — Daniel Kammen and William F. Lankford. Published in Solar & Wind Technology
===Articles in the media===
*November 2017: Solar energy ‘like light from heaven’ for rural Nicaragua - Irish Times
*May 2015: Sustainability: Clean cooking empowers women - Nature magazine
*April 2010: Nicaragua Solar Project- We are very happy to be working on a program with the Solar Women of Totogalpa in Nicaragua where we bring a small group of people from North America to a remote village in the Central American highlands. Participants will build a solar oven, take solar cooking classes, and tour local sustainable projects. More information... -World Wide Ecologies
*June 2009: Harnessing Both Sun and Cell Phone to Close Gaps in Local Health Care - Worldchanging
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*July 2017:
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*January 2017:
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*October 2014
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*July 2014
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* Preguntas Frecuentes de la Cocción Solar
Category:Countries
Category:Americas
Category:Central America
Category:Nicaragua
Category:Spanish-speaking countries