“The problem I was trying to solve was something that comes from the heart, something that has affected [me] personally,” explains Charlot Magayi, who founded Mukuru Clean Stoves.
The life-changing stoves she’s designed are not only safer to use, but have dramatically reduced pollution from the simple act of cooking at home. Both are issues that affected her personally growing up in a slum in Nairobi, Kenya, after being orphaned at just 10 years old.
“Somebody does not have to lose their life while they’re cooking,” she says, which is what nearly happened to her daughter, who was two when she was badly burned by the family’s traditional stove.
What’s more, the household air pollution caused by these stoves – which use charcoal as fuel in small spaces – causes serious, long-term respiratory and health problems.
Her daughter’s accident was the catalyst for Magayi to redesign the traditional cooking stove, as it was “the thing that hurt me the most, that almost took my daughter’s life”.
The Mukuru Clean Stoves are more energy efficient, take less time to cook and instead of using charcoal use briquettes of recycled agricultural material that burn longer and do not create the same polluting fumes. The stoves are now in 530,000 homes across Kenya, meaning 2.5million people now cook in better conditions thanks to this creation in just a few short years.
While researching how to design a better stove, Magayi found that “household air pollution is the biggest problem when it comes to energy poverty”. Household air pollution “takes the lives of almost 4 million people worldwide every year,” says Maygai.
In Kenya about 20-24,000 people die every single year because of it. Shockingly, Magayi explains that research shows “being exposed to household air pollution to a child is equivalent to a four year old smoking four packs of cigarettes every single day”.
The staggering figures are caused by one of our most basic human needs – cooking to feed their families. “Just imagine inhaling that type of smoke everyday,” she says.
These problems follow children throughout their lives and affect all areas of it. For example, their ability to take part in sports can be dramatically affected and they’re unlikely to attain a high level as their lungs are so poor.
With such drastic and life-long problems it causes, Magayi says that even when people are talking about the climate crisis, the conversation rarely includes household air pollution because of the people it affects.
“It’s more prevalent in the underserved communities who don’t have access to other cooking methods. It’s not necessarily a big problem in big cities, except in slums. But it’s very poor communities, which are mostly in rural areas,” she explains.
To combat these issues, Magayi says: “I decided I needed to design a stove that would first of all, obviously solve the problem of accidental burns in children, but also address the challenges of housing deprivation and the high cost of fuel.”
In 2016, she decided to set up the business as the idea was constantly on her mind. “That’s all I would think about,” she says.
While as a young parent there were significant barriers to working, she found positives, too. “One thing with living in Mukuru is you probably know someone or someone’s dad who works in metal fabrication and they probably make traditional stoves, or work in the market where they sell different kinds of recycled metal. So I started there just asking if someone could help me source the materials or learn more about the traditional stove,” she said.
The following year, Magayi had created her social enterprise and was on an accelerator programme. She explains it’s not unusual for people growing up in slums to become entrepreneurs.
“Where I come from, we have high job insecurity, people are unemployed, so local youth often come up with really amazing ideas, and they start their own businesses so they can create jobs for themselves and their communities,” she said.
As well as improving household air pollution, the stoves also change the lives of women and girls, who are the main cooks at home. Mukuru Stoves partners with local women and female business owners who work as sales agents to distribute them. The company has already surpassed its 2024 figures after taking on more than 1,000 women.
For women, they are able to “earn $7- $10 (£5-£7) more per week in terms of household income,” explains Magayi, a decent chunk of the average $40-$100 monthly income which can go towards better meals, school uniforms and other monthly costs. The stove’s efficiency also reduces the amount of cooking time, meaning women can spend more time at paid jobs, and girls can do homework instead of cooking.
Magayi’s company, almost entirely female staffed, has in part managed to grow so quickly thanks to being a winner of the EarthShot Prize in 2022. Founded by Prince William, it awards £1m to five winners to progress their climate solution business.
Magayi said winning the prize “meant everything”, and has also “been such a validation”.
It has allowed the entrepreneur to get the stoves to more people than expected, and increasing amounts of people are hearing about what they’re doing. “Communities are enjoying the benefits of using an improved cook stove, and we’re just so grateful for that,” she added.
The stoves are predominantly distributed in Western Kenya. Before winning the EarthShot prize, they were available in three counties, which has now increased to seven.
By the end of the year the plan is to be 10 counties, though as western Kenya has 11 counties, and the team are adamant to reach them all, which will result in distributing more than one million stoves.
“Just being able to proudly say that we have an agent selling Mukuru clean stores in each and every single one of those counties would be such a proud moment for us. Even having the seven we’re serving right now, it’s just amazing,” Magayi says.
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