Sun Ovens sends solar cooking to Uganda

ELBURN — Charcoal, wood and petroleum-based fuels can be expensive and scarce in Uganda.

Sunlight, however, is not.

Sun Ovens International Inc. is teaming with firms from Arizona and Uganda to bring rural Uganda residents the power to cook with the sun.

Sun Ovens is licensing its Global Sun Oven, a solar oven that can cook for six to eight people, to Tucson Transatlantic Trade Inc. Holding Group (TTT) and UltraTec of Kampala, Uganda, so they can assemble, sell and, eventually, manufacture the ovens in Kampala.

Cooking fuel costs run about $7 per month for a family living in rural Uganda, Sun Ovens President Paul Munsen said.

Once the ovens are shipped to Uganda and assembled there, they will be sold for $115, but just $3.76 per month for three years. The Sun Oven has no fuel costs and can handle between 70 and 80 percent of any family's cooking needs, Munsen said.

The first shipment of 2,700 Global Sun Oven kits will head to Uganda in May, but won't be ready for distribution until August, after travel time, customs and assembly, Munsen said.

TTT received a $300,000 loan from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to purchase the oven parts and a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to set up the assembly plant now and a manufacturing plant later in Kampala, Munsen said.

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) is a self-sustaining federal agency that sells investment services to American businesses expanding into developing nations.

The $300,000 loan by OPIC is on the smaller end of aid it gives to U.S. companies going into developing nations, but it is a positive one, according to Tim Harwood, a press officer with OPIC.

Harwood points to the environmentally sound technology and that Sun Ovens reduce reliance on scare fuel sources, Harwood said.

In the past three years, about 400 ovens have been put to use in Uganda and have been well received, Munsen said.

The ovens will be distributed by a women's group headed by Uganda's first lady, Janet Museveni, OPIC said.

Eventually, TTT and UltraTec will build a manufacturing plant in Kampala, which will make the ovens even more affordable, Munsen said.

By assembling and, later, making the ovens in Uganda, instead of the U.S., the ovens won't be too expensive for local residents, Munsen said.

In the past, Sun Ovens International has sent its larger, industrial-sized Villager Sun Oven to Honduras to help rural women start their own baking businesses.

Sun Ovens has shipped two of the larger ovens to Afghanistan to help with cooking in refugee camps, Munsen said, with four more on the way.

Both projects were funded by Rotary Clubs. By summer, Munsen hopes to send 20 more Villager units to Afghanistan to help feed the hungry and, later, to start microentrepreneurial enterprises such as bakeries, Munsen said.

Contact Jim Faber, Staff Writer, Suburban Chicago Newspapers at (630) 844-5889 or jfaber@scn1.com.