BioSmart Fundraising:

We are BioSmart, a student-led initiative at the University of Exeter which has been running for 3 years now. We have been developing a furnace, alongside our partner charity, Friends of Kadzinuni, that can burn agricultural waste and turn it into BioChar. This furnace has been designed to help the local community in Kadzinuni, Kenya.

Our project is currently at its implementation stage, so our plan now is to send some of our team members to Kadzunini in order to test out our latest furnace and stove prototypes, as well as conduct a needs assessment of the area, to ensure the continued development of our initiative.

This trip will take place in January 2019, which is now fast approaching! During these next few weeks, we will be trying to raise £2,500 in order to cover the cost of flights, visas, accommodation, etc. Part of our fundraising efforts will include our team running the Exeter Santa Run 5km Race. Therefore, we would greatly appreciate any donations from you, whether they be big or small. Thank you so much for your support, we really appreciate it!

The BioSmart Initiative:

Our initial needs assessment of Kadzunini showed that women and children were walking for up to three hours a day to collect charcoal from a distant market or alternatively they were cutting down trees to obtain fuelwood. By supplying a furnace to the local community, the village will gain a local source of fuel that offers multiple uses in the long-term...

Firstly, this BioChar can be used cook food more efficiently for the village and it will mean that the women will no longer have to travel for 3 hours a day to obtain charcoal to cook with.

Secondly, BioChar can also be sold by the women at local markets, thus providing them with a form of employment and empowerment. This will also enable their children to go to school and receive an education, rather than collecting charcoal with their mothers as they have done in the past.

Finally, BioChar can be used as a soil amendment to help increase farmers' crop yields by up to 140%. Farming plays a major role in the community in Kadzunini, so we hope that this benefit will help to boost the local economy, as well as reduce deforestation which has been a growing problem in the area as of late.

In the future, our aim is for BioSmart to become a fully sustainable initiative that can exclusively employ women, who will be able to sell this BioChar both at local markets and to farmers in the vicinity.