IN AFRICA, MANY WOMEN DIE OF POLLUTION FROM COOKING
The night Fatimah died, it rained endlessly. Her sullen eyes – scarlet and dilated- shut in with a hot, almost steamy tear, as she let out her final cough which also would be her last breath.
Fatimah had battled myocardial ischemia for seven years – a heart disease she contracted from her many years of inhaling smoke from cooking with firewood. She worked as a village food vendor to ensure her three children live and get education, something she did not afford herself.
This story is one of the several million stories of women all over Sub-Saharan Africa, whose lives have been severely threatened by the harmful consequences of unknowingly inhaling smoke that comes from cooking with charcoal, wood, crop waste, and dung.
Across many villages, towns, and bigger communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, women rely on dirty fuel for cooking. Along with their children, they walking long distances to fetch wood.
photo credit: IamNotUnique