Visual Project Management | Grant Work: The Power of Poo: Biogas_Paskova_012

Kamana Jean, 56 years old, carries wood by a road snaking through Mount Kigali, Rwanda on November 17, 2017. Jean said he'd be more happy to use something else - like biogas - to cook with, adding that wood smoke flavors his food and it is hard on the body, creating problems with eyesight for him and his eight children and wife. Nearly half of all Rwandans live in poverty, relying on small-scale farming for survival without gas or electricity. With so many women and children spending hours of the day foraging for wood used for cooking and light, often damaging their eyes, lungs, the forests and atmosphere, a little inventiveness helps. Enter cow and enter pig -- not just as a source of food, but also the heat needed to cook it. Or more specifically, their poo -- the fuel fed to a biogas digester, a tank that converts organic waste into methane.

Kamana Jean, 56 years old, carries wood by a road snaking through Mount Kigali, Rwanda on November 17, 2017. Jean said he'd be more happy to use something else - like biogas - to cook with, adding that wood smoke flavors his food and it is hard on the body, creating problems with eyesight for him and his eight children and wife.  

Nearly half of all Rwandans live in poverty, relying on small-scale farming for survival without gas or electricity. With so many women and children spending hours of the day foraging for wood used for cooking and light, often damaging their eyes, lungs, the forests and atmosphere, a little inventiveness helps. Enter cow and enter pig -- not just as a source of food, but also the heat needed to cook it. Or more specifically, their poo -- the fuel fed to a biogas digester, a tank that converts organic waste into methane.