Xavina

Xavina is from Kigali, cares for a family of seven, and she runs a small business. She currently cooks with charcoal which not only harms her and her family’s respiratory health but also emits a significant amount of CO₂ and contributes to the deforestation in Rwanda.

Xavina requested a grant to purchase an advanced biomass cookstove. By supporting this grant through Lendwithcare, your support will subsidise over 50% of a pellet gasifier cookstove for Xavina. This will be supplied by our partner organisation, FairClimateFund which is working in collaboration with BioMassters in Rwanda.

Pellet cooking is very clean and almost smoke-free, comparable to LPG, and uses around 85% less wood to generate the same cooking energy compared with charcoal. The biomass used comes from forestry waste. Not only the production but also the highly efficient stove enables CO₂ reductions at 3 tonnes per year per stove. The lifespan of a stove is expected to be around 4-5 years and our partner in Rwanda will provide free of charge maintenance over the first 3 years. Pellets as cooking fuel are around 30% cheaper than charcoal in Kigali today and Xavina will save money from day one of using it. FairClimateFund will check on the use of a large sample of cookstoves every 12 months and make an estimate of how much CO₂ emissions have been reduced.

Please note that by supporting Xavina you are making a grant and not a loan. This grant is pre-funded and the cookstove will be delivered within 30 days of the full value of the grant being transferred to our partner organisation. You won’t receive the repayments you would normally expect with a Lendwithcare loan, and instead we’ll let you know the reduction in CO₂ emissions as a result of your support.