Blog (Door Els Rijke)

Alexander Chege and his wife were one of the first farmers to install a biogas plant on their homestead in Kimende, Kiambu region of Kenya. Kimende is now a biogas ‘hub’ with around 50 clients already. Biogas is doing the Chege family really good, especially in terms of savings. The family of six used a lot of charcoal before, as they also need to boil a lot of water for milking their approximately twenty cows. They used to spent around Ksh 4,000 (€ 33) monthly on charcoal and other cooking...

In Uganda, women’s day is a public holiday and thus a good opportunity for organizing a celebration. The Uganda Domestic Biogas Programme (UDBP) used this day to award some of its beneficiaries and partners; and on their turn received an award for their contribution to women’s empowerment. The ceremony took place at the grounds of one of UDBP’s partners, a women’s group called Gabula Atudde, in Mukono.   Ms. Margaret Nakiwala, a widow, gave a public testimony what biogas has meant fo...

This Wednesday the 24th of November, the Kenya National Domestic Biogas Programme was officially launched in Kimende, Lari district. The town of Kimende was chosen because of its proximity to Nairobi and also because it’s a biogas "hub". Almost thirty households have biogas now and even more in the area surrounding Kimende. The launch took place at a school yard but before that the biogas plant of Mr & Mrs Chege was officially inaugurated. This household is a typical biogas c...

Yesterday, the fourth of August, was an historical day for Kenya. Kenyans voted in a referendum for a new constitution and the majority voted “yes”.   Hivos supports an ICT based election monitoring programme (‘election Watch’) in East Africa which is coordinated by CRECO for the Kenya referendum. Ushahidi, one of the partners in the programme, introduced the uchaguzi website. The website uses information coming from hundreds of citizens through sms and internet. This Kenyan platform...

Last Thursday I attended the closing ceremony of Kenya’s first mason training of this year. In these trainings, people working in masonry and related construction work are being trained “on the job”, to become certified biogas constructors. In Kenya, the training consists of two theoretical days, and eight practical days. At the end of the training, one or two digesters are built and ready for operation. I was especially interested to visit the ceremony because five women participated in t...

I have been working for some months for the Africa Biogas Partnership Programme now, and only recently I got the opportunity to see my first two biogas digesters. The digesters, located in Mukono, close to Ugandan capital Kampala, just started to produce gas and the owners were very happy with it. Biogas is quite an investment for rural people. The smallest digester would cost around € 750. With some subsidy (almost € 300) provided through the programme and, as is expected in the near futu...