BHUTAN, Nepal—Deepak Ashwani, a native of Punjab is looking to protect the environment by innovating the way people cook their food. As per stats provided by Ashwani, globally, 500 people die every hour (125 in India) due to open cooking fire smoke. “The deaths caused by smoke are more than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis deaths combined,” he said.Dazin, Deepak Ashwani’s non-profit enterprise launched recently in Bhutan leases smokeless cook stoves to families and turns crowd-sourced wood waste into condensed fuel ‘cookies’. One kg of cookies provide fuel for about 5 kg wood. After Bhutan, he aims to expand further in India in near future.
Ashwani states that unlike any other development project, Dazin scales the transformational impact on its own due to its self-sustaining model. “Every stove cost leased in rural areas is recovered within 7 months due to the fuel sales in cities. This recovered cost is used to lease another stove to a family allowing Dazin to multiply on its own and creating ripple impact of any contribution it receives. Dazin’s model save lives, reduces carbon emissions and gives people a way out of poverty.”
This project has already won several awards, helping Dazin complete a successful pilot project. However, now the enterprise must raise the upfront costs for the stoves by their recently launched Crowdfunding campaign. If you are interested in helping out, please see the link.
