The Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, His grace Most Rev. J.B Kwofie has called on women leaders who participated in a training of trainers on sustainable cook stove using rocks to be responsible caretakers of the environment.

“Be responsible to what God has given us, we have abused creation and the consequences are clear to all of us. The efforts we are doing today is to become responsible caretakers of what God has given us,” he said.

Caritas Ghana and Sun 24 Incorporated on Wednesday, August 21 organised a training for women leaders in the archdiocese of Accra on sustainable cook stove using rocks. The training was on the theme, “Taking care of our common home” and was inspired by Pope Francis’ Laudato Si document which calls on faithful’s to care for the environment.

Speaking in an interview with with Angelus News, Joyce Oduro of  Sun 24, she spelt out some benefits of using the rock cook stove.

“This is basically to just ensure that we are using less of charcoal or firewood so that we can save the environment. So what we are saying is if the women are using less of it then the people who are cutting the trees for firewood and charcoal will also reduce the rate at which they are cutting  because there will be less of demand for it and for Sun 24 they have realised that there are lots of benefits with adding rock to your cook stove so once you add the rocks to it, you use less of the firewood or less of the charcoal and the space within the rocks allow air to pass through it which makes the fire burn clean”

“Then we can also talk about the health of women, if there is less smoke then that means you are not going to be affected as well. So there are a lot of benefits in this, first you save the amount on the firewood you use thus you save money and also the fire used,” she said.

She also gives some education on the appropriate type of rocks to use for the cook stove: “It’s the hard rock you use but not the rocks from the river else it will explode. Any hard rock that can contain heat and the space within it should be 2cm so that air can pass through. And when the rock is heated up it can take about three hours to cool down so within that hour you can use the rock to cook or to even heat water anything that doesn’t need much heat.  So we set the fire, then take all the charcoal from it and we are just cooking rice on it so what we are saying is that when the rock is heated up it can actually cook food.

Source: Jennifer Doe// Radio Angelus