An Indian woman with a hightech recipe
How an ecological activist founded Gadhia Solar
Shirin Gadhia briefly tells her colleague when to take the  "solar cake" off the "stove". Then she packs her car full with hand-painted posters. Soon, she will give a speech about cooking with solar energy in front of a women's group, and the chocolate cake plays an important role in the programme. It is prepared on a solar stove proving that a new technology allows whipping up an excellent meal as well. Shirin Gadhia runs a company specialised in solar-energy systems in India's state of Gujarat. The ecological activist invested a lot of hard work to expand her company of "Gadhia Solar" from a one-woman business to the biggest producer of solar kitchens in the world. With its 48 employees, the company produces simple family stoves made of parabolic reflectors and solar facilities for large kitchens. The 18 major solar facilities that "Gadhia Solar" has built up to now will save 4,000 tons of CO2 by 2012.
"When I started talking about the negative effects of deforestation in 1988, I quickly realised what was missing," remembers Shirin Gadhia. "People told me that all the things I was saying might be true, but that they were poor. How else could they prepare their meals?" Gas or petrol stoves were too expensive for most people. In order to be able to cook for a family, a woman needs to collect three kilograms of wood per day in India. The consequences can be felt everywhere. "The river contains a lot of sand and stones during the rainy season. This is a consequence of soil erosion," explains Shirin Gadhia while we cross a dried out riverbed in her hometown of Valsad. The small community lies four hours north of Bombay by car and is surrounded by a barren landscape and stinking chemical areas. The climate is becoming increasingly hot and dry. The local farmers are losing more and more of their fertile farmland. Nonetheless, Shirin Gadhia had to work 20 years for her success. In the meantime, her company of "Gadhia Solar" has equipped entire villages with solar stoves and broken a great number of records. It has built the "highest" solar stove in the world for the Indian army in the Himalayas, and in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, a temple cooks 30,000 meals a day with solar energy.
However, the ecological pioneer started almost at zero. While she was looking for a solution to the problems of the farmers, Shririn Gadhia remembered that a friend from her time as a student had developed a solar stove. The simple device made of a parabolic reflector costs less than 100 euros and had been used in Africa before. But it was not very successful.  "When you go to a village distributing solar stoves, nothing much happens," knows Shirin Gadhia from her own experience. People are often illiterate and have great inhibitions when it comes to modern technology. Therefore, the daughter of Indian parents born in Malaysia put her trust in another strategy. Owners of solar stoves were to be advised by an expert on a regular basis. To achieve this, she founded the ecological centre of ICNEER, whose honorary members visit the villages to see if everything is alright. If ICNEER is unable to do so, it works together with local organisations. "You have to take care of the people, otherwise you don't achieve anything," says Shirin Gadhia. In order to provide even the poorest of the poor with solar stoves, she regularly visits Germany to give speeches and collect donations.
Her success shows that she is right: in the meantime, India has the first "smoke-free community", which does not relate to tobacco consumption. An entire village, Bysannapalli in the southern state of Andra Pradesh switched over to solar stoves. All 36 families in the village cook with solar energy, financed by donations that were collected by Austrian school children and the St. Johann community at a charity sale. In this way, Bysanapalli saves 756 kilograms of wood per week. In addition, the women sell self-made cakes and biscuits twice a week as well as local titbits like baked potatoes and roasted peanuts at the weekly market. "I told the women that they could do more than just cook for their own family with their solar stoves. It is possible to prepare large amounts of food and sell it at the market. In this way, solar stoves become a source of income." Word went round: 20 further villages have already signalled their interest in the model. If this became a precedent, the more than six million Indian villages could save about 4.5 billion kilograms of wood each week.
Text and pictures: Britta Petersen, translated by new ethics
Pictures are showing Shirin Gadhia with solar stove » Expedient work for the environment
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