Last Month Of Academic Year

Today we kick-off with the last month of the academic year in Uganda. November marks a demanding time for both teachers and students, as children will soon start sitting for their final exams.

Although the academic calendar year officially ends on Friday 5th of December, end of November is the deadline/goal we use to ensure we have finalised collecting all the necessary information and indicators to close our Monitoring Period (from 01/01/25 until 31/12/25).

November is also busy for our Project Officers, who meticulously inspect the condition of every institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) in the 120 participating schools under the Project Activity. We thoroughly assess the performance of each IICS and prepare for the free repairs that will take place throughout the months of December and January next year.

We ensure that by the time schools open their doors once again in February 2026, each IICS and every school will be ready to start with their cooking activities in the most efficient and effective kitchen environment.

Transitioning to Article 6.4

Simoshi’s Project Activity “Institutional Improved Cook Stoves for Schools and Institutions in Uganda” is registered with both the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) (10345) and the Gold Standard (GS) (4364).

CDM (Kyoto Protocol, 1997 → operational 2001) was created to help Annex I (developed) countries meet emission targets by financing greenhouse‑gas reduction projects in developing countries, issuing Certified Emission Reductions (CERs). Such framework came to an end in 2020 and was replaced by Article 6.

Article 6.4 keeps CDM’s core idea—internationally transferred mitigation outcomes from projects—but restructures governance, tightens integrity safeguards (additionality, baselines, accounting), requires Nationally Determined Ccontribution’s alignment and corresponding adjustments, and embeds finance for adaptation.

Simoshi’s Project Activity is currently transitioning to the new Article 6.4 framework, the substantive check for such transition was concluded, and is currently for public view on the UNFCCC website here.

Unless a request for review is submitted by the host Party or any member or alternate member of the Supervisory Body by 07 November 2025, the request for transition shall be deemed approved by the Supervisory Body, in accordance with paragraph 41 of the latest version of the “Procedure - Transition of CDM activities to the Article 6.4 mechanism”.

Multitasking Falls Short

Women are the real example of resilience, power, and stamina. This image captures the amazing daily life of a woman on this part of the world.

Handling several activities simultaneously - you can see her cooking with one hand, handling clean dishes with the other hand, comforting her child with her body and heart.

She still manages to stay calm, despite all the difficulties encountered when cooking with an open 3 stone fireplace. Respect for all women who still manage to keep a smile on their face, no complaints, and raise their children with whatever resources they have.

The Beans In The School Menu

In Ugandan schools, beans are a common part of the school meals and are widely consumed by students. They are a good source of protein, carbohydrates, and essential nutrients, which help support the students' growth and learning. The government and various NGOs often promote the cultivation and consumption of beans as part of efforts to improve nutrition and food security in schools.

Children usually complain about the school meals because mostly every day of the week beans are served together with “posho”, the maize meal dough.

Nevertheless, beans are highly nutritious and offer several benefits:

1. High Protein Content: Beans are an excellent source of plant-based protein, which is essential for growth, muscle development, and overall health.

2. Rich in Fiber: The dietary fiber in beans aids in digestion, helps prevent constipation, and promotes a feeling of fullness, which can improve students' concentration and energy levels.

3. Vitamins and Minerals: Beans are packed with important nutrients like iron, magnesium, potassium, folate, and B-vitamins, which support various bodily functions and boost immune health.

4. Low in Fat: Beans contain very little fat, making them a healthy option for maintaining a balanced diet.

5. Helps in Managing Blood Sugar: The complex carbohydrates in beans have a low glycemic index, helping to regulate blood sugar levels.

Some schools might afford an extra item on the menu, and could mix either greens or cassava in the beans soup, making it really tasty!

Overfilling Saucepans

We always like to share some of the most common mistakes or problems found in the school kitchens.

Today we talk about using the wrong size of saucepan. Sometimes, schools increase their population, with the amount of food also increasing in the same proportion.

This means the capacities of the saucepans used are not appropriate, and the school would need to either buy a bigger institutional improved cook stove (IICS), or they can enlarge the current saucepan used - while they look for funds to make a new purchase.

Action needs to be taken fast, because when using a saucepan that it is overfilled on a daily basis, food has salt and will damage and corrode the IICS combustion chamber. We always train and monitor cooks to ensure they leave 1/3 of their saucepan capacities free to allow for the food not to spill outside when boiling.

We share a picture here below with the typical mistake we find with the cooking of beans, you can see how this saucepan has now become small and the soup reaches all the way to the top.

Bad Storage Practice

We usually find schools storing their firewood inside the kitchen, right behind the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS). Cooks believe that as stoves get hot, the firewood will dry much faster.

Nevertheless keeping firewood inside a kitchen (or any enclosed living space) can be risky for several reasons:

• Pests: Firewood often harbors insects, spiders, or even rodents that can spread inside the house.

• Mold and fungi: Damp or unseasoned wood can release spores and contribute to poor indoor air quality.

• Dust and dirt: Wood sheds bark, dust, and debris that can make a kitchen harder to keep clean.

• Safety hazards: Storing too much wood indoors increases the risk of fire if it’s kept too close to stoves or other heat sources.

This is why as part of our training sessions and monitoring visits, we try to implement better practices, such as keeping firewood stored outside in a dry, well-ventilated place (like a wood shed), and only bring in a small amount at a time as needed.

Last Term Begins

School term III has officially begun yesterday, and it is the last and most significant term of the year, as students are busy getting ready to sit for their final exams.

As per the government school calendar, the last day of school for 2025 will be held on Friday 5 December. And the long awaited holidays will commence for two full months. The new school year will begin on Monday 2 February 2026.

In the meantime, Simoshi’s Project Officers are busy in the school kitchens checking the optimal and most efficient operation of the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS).

During the first week of the term, enrollment slowly builds up, therefore the amount of food cooked is less. As such, it is important to highlight the need to always use the correct size of saucepan on each IICS, as cooks have the tendency to use smaller ones, causing damages to the combustion chambers.

This is one of the main recurring problems we see in the cooking behavior, and we put a lot of emphasis on this training topic right at the start of the term, to ensure smoke also reduces inside the building, otherwise the smaller saucepan sizes cannot push the smoke through the chimney pipes.

Allocating Funds: When Is It The Right Time?

For the past two years, several international donors have come into the space of electric cooking transition in Sub-Saharan African countries, with the aim to support governments and projects upscale the transition to cleaner fuels. This current year has seen a special interest to include schools into the picture.

Right now, there is an open call for proposals from MECS with funds from the British High Commission. They have identified 143 schools across Uganda, with the aim of supporting their cooking transitions with electric cooking appliances.

Donor money can significantly improve the efficacy of interventions aimed at changing cooking habits in Ugandan schools by enabling several targeted strategies:

1. Provision of Resources: Funding can supply improved, energy-efficient cooking stoves, clean cooking fuels, and necessary utensils, making it easier and safer for schools to adopt new cooking practices.

2. Training and Education: Donor funds can support training for school staff and students on healthy, efficient, and environmentally friendly cooking methods, fostering behavioral change.

3. Infrastructure Development: Investments in kitchen and sanitation infrastructure can create a supportive environment for sustained healthy cooking habits.

4. Monitoring and Evaluation: Funding allows for regular assessment of the impact of interventions, helping to refine strategies and ensure goals are met effectively.

5. Community Engagement: Resources can facilitate outreach programs involving parents and local communities, reinforcing behavioral change beyond schools.

6. Incentives and Support: Financial incentives or ongoing technical support can motivate continued adherence to improved cooking practices.

Nevertheless, although allocating donor funds into these areas in schools can become a game-changer, strategically for Simoshi this is not the right time to make an application. Understanding the behavioural change involved, the right technology chosen that can sustain that change in the long run takes time to test different approaches until the right way forward has been agreed. And that means collaborating with the schools to better understand their needs and ability to pay for all the costs involved, and how those might be offset.

That is why throughout 2025 Simoshi has been testing induction cookers in two schools that have already been supported for the past five years in their cooking transitions moving away from traditional 3-stone fires to energy efficient cook stoves.

Leading to healthier habits, environmental benefits, and improved educational outcomes is a serious matter, and at Simoshi we do not take such matters lightly. We have been supporting over 100 schools for the past 10 years, and we want to succeed in their cooking journeys as they move up the energy ladder. We are excited for the years to come, as we are successfully testing induction cookers of different capacities. All costing models are looking bright, as the Ugandan government has also announced a need school cooking tariff that makes electricity the most competitive cooking fuel in the country.

We look forward to collaborating with the right donor, when the time is right, as we make sure that everyone involved is in this partnership for the good and long lasting reasons: see schools succeed with their kitchens!

Colleagues Go Electric

Electric bikes (e-bikes) are starting to gain attention in Uganda, and they can bring several economic, environmental, and social benefits. We are very proud to see one of our colleagues, Kabogooza, who supports Simoshi with all institutional Improved cook stoves (IICS) maintenance, recently purchased an electric bike from Spiro.

Spiro is a fast-growing electric mobility company operating in several African countries (Uganda, Kenya, Benin, Togo, Rwanda). They focus on electric motorcycles (e-bodas) and are expanding their charging/swapping infrastructure across Uganda. Kabogooza got the bike on lease-to-own, paying UGX 10,000 daily - equivalent to approximately USD 2.80.

We are proud to see our colleagues contributing towards global warming and climate change. No tailpipe pollution, which helps cut down on air pollution in towns like Kampala and Entebbe. This supports Uganda’s green energy transition, especially since the country’s electricity grid is largely powered by hydropower.

Holidays Equal Maintenance

Term 2 is now officially over and children are home on holidays. Term 3 (the last term for the school year) will start on Monday 15th of September.

This means we have precious time to repair all the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) to all out participating schools under the Project Activity. Schools do not pay for such maintenance events, this is a free service Simoshi provides for a 10-year period.

Throughout August, we visited all 120 schools and their respective IICS, to have a detailed assessment on the repairs needed, while we also organise with the schools their availability for our Maintenance Officers to have access to the kitchens and get the IICS operating just as new, achieving the highest efficiencies and firewood savings.

Moving Up The Energy Ladder

For the past 9 years, Simoshi has been supporting schools in Uganda to move away from traditional 3-stone fires, by using energy efficient institutional improved cook stoves (IICS). Operating such IICS requires quite a lot of dedication from cooks, who do need to cut firewood into small pieces, a practice that really demands a drastic behavioural change from their past habits.

Using big firewood logs with 3-stone fires is the norm, and getting used to chopping into pieces can be very challenging, especially when not having the right tools or equipment to achieve such goal.

When monitoring the use of the IICS, it is not rare to find cooks still using firewood logs inside the IICS, a nd such practices damages the grates from the combustion chambers, braking them in half because they cannot support such heavy weights.

Big firewood pieces also asfisxiate and disrupts the airflow, not allowing for proper combustion, eventually slowing down the cooking process and increasing the consumption.

That is why continuous monitoring and training is crucial to ensure the best use of the IICS. With the current testing of electric induction cook stoves, such fuel threat is a story from the past! It all comes down to switches and buttons for the cooks to operate, and the electricity reliability from the grid.

Faith and Education

Missionaries (both Christian and Muslim) played a major role in establishing Uganda’s early schools. Because of this, religious instruction became intertwined with formal education. Many schools were—and still are—owned by religious organizations (Catholic, Anglican, Muslim), so faith-based education has deep roots.

At Simoshi’s registered Project Activity, we have 8 Church of Uganda Anglican aided schools included, 5 schools with the support of the Catholic Church, and 6 Muslim oriented private and government aided schools.

Pupils take CRE (Christian Religious Education) or IRE (Islamic Religious Education), depending on their faith background. The focus is on moral values, basic teachings of the Bible or Qur’an, and cultural traditions. The Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) oversees curriculum content, whether the schools has a religious approach or not. Religious Education is optional at higher levels, but moral instruction is encouraged at all levels.

Exams Time

We have started a new month, and on the 22nd of AugustTerm 2 will come to an end. This means children have already started to sit for the exams. When we go to visit the schools kitchens, we find very quiet compounds, nobody is allowed to shout or move around the different buildings unless you have an office permission.

Nevertheless, cooking never stops, and children are still helping the cooks to gather the greens from their own vegetable gardens, do the washing and cutting. Everyone participates!

This month is also important for Simoshi to do the last visit of the term, to check on the condition of all the institutional improved cook stoves, and get a well organized schedule for the free repairs. We will have exactly 3 weeks when schools will close their doors for their holiday period, so we must make to most of the time when the stoves will not be in use.

Smart Transition

We are currently learning a lot of valuable lessons to make sure our participating schools can smartly transition from energy efficient cook stoves that consume firewood, to electric induction cookers.

Of course the cost of electric is more expensive, not because of the induction cooker itself, but because the whole set up needs many accessories and equipment installation to ensure a smooth operation. For example, a stabilizer is mandatory, because voltage is very unstable in Uganda. Cabling is also a major cost issue, because the wiring quality found in schools is usually very poor.

Therefore, to overcome some of the high costs explained above, we take the time to analyze the kitchen operations and flow of utensils and dishes cooked, to ensure that each induction cooker is not idle. Several dishes are cooked can be cooked in one stove, all that is needed are several saucepans of different capacities to ensure the stove is constantly in operation and we maximize its output.

For example, in our sample school currently testing out the technology, one of the induction cookers has 2 saucepans and 1 frying pan to prepare the daily beans, the tea, and the frying of sauce and beans. By simply allocating the necessary saucepans and understanding the kitchen flow, the amount of induction cookers needed can be reduced to maximize the utilization and efficiently allocate the capital expenditure.

Our Files, Our Treasures

Monitoring the continuous use of the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) in the schools participating under our Gold Standard registered project is KEY when claiming the emissions reductions.

A lot of indicators are monitored on a monthly basis, and all the information collected is safely stored in an individual file for each school. The information is also captured by our Project Officers on our IT infrastructure called Kenga, so the different parameters can also be viewed live from the Kenga dashboard from anywhere in the world.

The picture below shows all the 117 schools currently participating under our Project Activity. The different colors indicate the year when the IICS were first installed. We started with red, so the bottom shelf are for all schools that started using their IICS back in 2016.

Impressive, right? Because for the past 9 years, we have been continuously monitoring the successful use of the IICS in the schools kitchens, to ensure at least 50% of the firewood is saved when preparing the children’s daily meals.

By the way, the cutie model in the picture is Orly 🐶

Not For The Ladies

One of the traditional dishes prepared in Ugandan schools is a maize meal called “posho”. This is served together with the beans, every single day.

But preparing it can be a very challenging process, especially because an average school with 800 students will need at least 120 litres of water and 60 kilos of maize flour. The flour is poured and stirred using long wooden paddles. It is common to use teams of male cooks due to the size and weight of the mixture.

Here below we share some images of a school preparing the posho in a traditional stove construction, making it even a harder job as the flames of the firewood inefficiently burning become very dangerous, while the heat and smoke also contribute to the unhealthy kitchen environment.

July Kicks-Off with Electric News

We are now officially testing the cooking of beans on a daily basis at a government aided school that prepares daily meals for 800 primary students.

This school has been using traditional 3-stone fire places in the past. We have introduced two institutional improved cook stoves to cater for some of their meals.

Today we have all 3 technologies cooking side by side - traditional , improved, and electric - as it allows us to do real time comparisons, Kitchen Performance Tests and compare the fuel consumption between many indicators, on all the three cooking methods.

The next 6 months will be a great learning opportunity for Simoshi and the school, as we prepare all participating 120 schools to a future smooth transition to electric clean cooking.

We will be sharing a lot of data, findings and experiences from the cooks on the challenges and opportunities faced during such testing period, so follow this space closely!

Humble, But Clean

We know that our schools kitchen buildings are still behind for international standards, despite having moved away from traditional 3-stone fire to energy efficient improved cook stoves.

But we are so proud to share how children still remove their shoes to keep the kitchen floor clean. Outside it is mud and dust, and everyone makes their best efforts to contribute to having a clean kitchen environment. Despite all the challenges, they always make us very proud ♥️

Raising Awareness Abroad

Our founder and Managing Director Virginia Echavarria visited Taipei last week to promote the use of energy efficient and clean cooking technologies in Ugandan schools. This visit was possible thanks to the invitation and support of Love Binti International, a Taiwanese registered NGO since 2015, with several implemented projects in Uganda that include sustainable agriculture, access to clean water, and women’s menstrual hygiene.

This visit included various presentations, and aimed at building partnerships, share success stories, and explore the potential collaboration with an array of Taiwanese stakeholders committed to climate action, sustainable developmnet, and social innovation.

Through energy efficient and clean cookstove projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve health outcomes, Simoshi issues high-integrity carbon credits that support both climate and human development goals. Virginia had the amazing opportunity to share Simoshi’s experience with local businesses, environmental groups, and academic institutions, positioning its model as a powerful example of how Taiwan can engage in global carbon markets, while making a measurable difference in schools in Uganda.

To read the news about these engagements published on line in the local media in Mandarin, “全球碳權引領永續轉型 中小企業與公益行動共繪新藍圖”, please click here.

Consistent Monitoring

It is a crucial part of our carbon project requirements to monitor the usage of the stoves at least 6 times every year. That means every other month we visit all participating schools to ensure that they are not only using the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) to prepare their daily meals, but they are also keeping a clean kitchen environment.

During our visits, we collect several indicators, check on the condition of the stoves, saucepans and kitchen building, follow up with the schools’ bursars on the purchase of firewood and subsequent dry storage, and take this important time to go through our training manuals with the cooks on the operating IICS instructions.

The on-going support to all schools throughout these past 9 years has resulted in achieving excellence in all the kitchen spaces, and very satisfied customers - both cooks and administrators as the expenditures on firewood savings make a remarkable impact in their lives.