WUNRN
Women's Refugee Commission - 25
Photo Essay
KENYA - REFUGEE WOMEN - PHOTO ESSAY
- FUEL & FIREWOOD
Asha* also comes from
The Women’s Refugee Commission traveled
to Kenya’s Kakuma and Dadaab camps this summer to talk with refugee women about
what kind of challenges they face when cooking food rations for their families.
Read more about the Women’s Refugee
Commission Fuel and Firewood Initiative and what we’re
doing to ensure refugee women have safe access to cooking fuel.
Photos by Women's Refugee Commission,
Mariangela Bizzarri and Gerald Martone/IRC
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http://womensrefugeecommission.org/programs/firewood
Download our fact sheet on the Women's
Refugee Commission's Fuel and Firewood Initiative.
FUEL & FIREWOOD
The collection, supply and use of
firewood and alternative energies in humanitarian settings has been associated
with a variety of harmful consequences, including but not limited to: rape and
assault during firewood collection, environmental degradation and respiratory
and other illnesses caused by the indoor burning of biomass materials.
These consequences span traditional
humanitarian response sectors and rarely fit neatly into the existing mandates
of operational nongovernmental agencies (NGOs) and UN agencies. As a result,
household energy-related initiatives are often ad hoc and do not take into
account the lessons learned in other sectors or regions.
We
were in Kenya this summer conducting a joint assessment with the World Food
Programme (WFP) about safe access to cooking fuel in refugee camps. We visited
Kakuma and Dadaab camps to talk with refugee women about the kinds of cooking
fuel they are using and how they obtain it. As part of the Inter-Agency
Standing Committee for Safe Access to Firewood and alternative Energy (SAFE) in
Humanitarian Settings, our goal is to ensure that refugees have safe access to
cooking fuels that do not pose health or safety risks.
Firewood
rations are distributed by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Kakuma
camp every 60 days but for the average household, this ration only lasts 5-10
days. Refugee women face hard choices once their firewood rations run out.
They've been telling us that they often resort to trading their food rations
for cooking fuel in order to cook food for their families.