This Nonelectric Slow Cooker Is Helping the Environment and Empowering Women

[eridani]

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/12/21/wonderbag?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-12-21

To make the product more accessible to people in rural Africa, Collins set up a women’s entrepreneur program, aptly called Wonderpreneurs. The women receive a commission from the bags they sell, which are priced according to local markets, anywhere from $25 to $35. Today, Collins says, there is an army of 1,000 lady entrepreneurs in several countries, including Ghana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Somaliland.

The supply chain is inventive and eco-conscious. The bags are sewn in South Africa, offering jobs to locals. Although the stuffing is styrene, a material that doesn’t decay or recycle easily, Collins gets it from furniture and upholstery factories—waste that would otherwise be chucked in the trash.

For Collins, this is a clear passion project. She says it stems from having grown up in South Africa during apartheid; that sense of inequality in society never escaped her. Wanting to do something for women and the environment, she combined the two with Wonderbag, a product that caters to the needs of women and alleviates some cooking pollution.

As a farm girl growing up in the countryside, Collins says she recalls her grandmother making food in large pots and wrapping them with blankets to keep warm. That also helped them reduce the amount of fuel they used as a family. Over the years, she realized that cultures around the world bury their food to help it cook slowly, prompting her to create a prototype for Wonderbag