One of my favorite things to do during school breaks when I was growing up in Kenya was to help my mother fetch cooking fuel, mostly firewood and charcoal. It was a chance for us to bond. But I did not like to be around my mother in the kitchen because of the suffocating smoke that the fuel produced.
My mother passed away in January 2020. Prior to that, the last time I saw her was in October 2019. I didn’t know at the time that it would be our last time together, but I will never forget what she asked of me on our last day: whatever you do, please find a simple way to make a difference in other people’s lives. One afternoon in the summer of 2021, I came across a startling piece of information: that around the world, smoke from domestic fuel causes more premature deaths and illness than malaria and HIV combined. In sub-Saharan Africa, around 900 million people rely on polluting fuels such as wood, charcoal and kerosene for cooking, lighting and heating their homes. Smoke exposure from burning these fuels is the largest environmental cause of global disease, responsible for approximately 3 million premature deaths annually.
