Solar Cookers International in Sacramento, California, developed the CooKit as an adaptation of a cooker designed by Dr. Roger Bernard in France. The cooker consists of a foil-lined cardboard reflector with a dark pot inside a plastic bag. This simple mechanism converts hundreds of watts of sunlight into heat and can cook one or two pots of food at a time.
Solar Cookers International has set up local production of this cooker in Nairobi, Kenya and in Sacramento, California. The CooKit is used in scores of solar cooking projects around the world.
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Cardboard, aluminum foil, and plastic bags for well over 10,000 solar cookers have been donated to the Iridimi refugee camp and Touloum refugee camps in Chad by the combined efforts of the Jewish World Watch, the Dutch foundation KoZon, and Solar Cookers International. The refugees construct the cookers themselves, using the donated supplies and locally purchased Arabic gum,[1] and use them for midday and evening meals. The goal of this project was to reduce the Darfuri women's need to leave the relative safety of the camp to gather firewood, which exposed them to a high risk of being beaten, raped, kidnapped, or murdered.[2][3][4] It has also significantly reduced the amount of time women spend tending open fires each day, with the results that they are healthier and they have more time to grow vegetables for their families and make handicrafts for export.[1]