World Vision Ghana and Vivo Energy Eco-flame Initiative Address Deforestation and Poverty Challenge in East Gonja

By: Francis Npong, Communications Officer

The situation

In Kakoshi, a 29-year-old Huzema Razak once began her days in a cloud of smoke. For over three decades, she rose before sunrise to collect firewood, her back bent under the weight of logs needed to fuel the open fires that cooked her family’s meals and roasted cassava flakes into gari, a staple food. 

The smoke stung her eyes, scarred her lungs, and seeped into the walls of her home—a relentless reminder of the toll a traditional gari processing took on her health and time and energy. 

“I never thought I could fry gari in a smokeless environment with less firewood. This stove is amazing,” she says with a smile. 

Before this intervention, Huzema recalls, "the smoke followed me everywhere. But without firewood, there was no gari. Without gari, there was no income, and without income, I was not able to meet the needs of my household.”

Like hundreds of women in Kakoshi and surrounding communities, Huzema’s livelihood and income depended on cassava and firewood. Each week, she painstakingly gathered enough firewood and peeled, grated, fermented, and roasted cassava over firewood flames, transforming it into the crispy granules (gari) for sale at the local markets. 

The work involved in gari processing was exhausting for women and girls. Worse, the demand for large quantities of firewood stripped the land of trees and left the soil barren and the land degraded. Harvesting and carting firewood from the forest to the community hugely impacted the health of these women and girls, too. 

Transformation

But a shift has begun—one that would rewrite the story of Huzema and her community. World Vision Ghana, in partnership with Vivo Energy’s Eco-flame project initiative, has introduced energy-efficient cookstoves to women in Kakoshi and Lamsi. 

The stoves, designed to use minimal fuel, paired with mechanised roasters that replaced open fires, are reducing the health risk of women gari processors as well as reducing the quantity of firewood required for gari processing.

For Huzema, the change felt radical. “At first, I feared it would not work for me because I know the quantity of firewood required to process gari,” she admits. “But when I realised the stove required only a few sticks to cook or roast the staple, I said to myself, “This is what I needed. If this knowledge has come a little earlier, we would not have destroyed our forest that much,” she laments.

Impact  

The impact of the Eco-flame initiative was profound and immediate. The new stoves reduced wood consumption by 75%, slowing deforestation. The stove units eliminated smoke entirely, freeing women from chronic coughs and eye infections.

Most strikingly, this stove roasting cut gari processing time in half. Huzema was amazed at how she now produces twice as much gari with less firewood and less time. The quality of her product has also improved, increasing her profits enough to send her 5 children to school. “I never imagined I’d earn more by working less,” she laughs, sifting cassava flakes closer to herself.

The ripple effects of the Eco-flame initiative extend beyond economics and livelihoods. With hours reclaimed, women like Ajara Tahiru, 45, and also a beneficiary, now have extra time to rest and attend to the most important social activities, such as funerals and marriage ceremonies, among others. Their children, who were once tasked with gathering firewood, now attend school regularly.

The vegetation, too, is regaining its agility, says Ajara, corroborating the testimony of Huzema on how the eco-flame initiative was helping restore the environment. 

For Patrick Tachin, East Gonja Area Programme manager at World Vision Ghana, “These women aren’t just sustaining families—they’re healing the environment by adopting the Eco-flame initiative.” “We hope to extend this initiative to other surrounding communities shortly”, he adds. 

For Huzema, Ajara, and many other women and girls, the greatest joy is the lesser responsibility of firewood harvesting. Their homes, once hazy with smoke, now smell of fresh cassava. They dream of a future where their grandchildren will never destroy the forest for firewood and where clean energy powers homes and fuels their progress. “We’ve walked from darkness into light,” Huzema says. 

“Now, we see and are witnessing what’s possible, thanks to World Vision Ghana and Vivo Energy’s Eco-flame project.”  This initiative has not only sparked changes—it is igniting hope, health, and a greener community.  

The Eco-flame initiative is part of a series of interventions highlighting grassroots solutions to climate and poverty challenges and formed part of World Vision Ghana and Vivo Energy’s sustainable environmental and livelihoods initiative.