Akaro Clean firestarters

Akaro fire starter is a low carbon product used to start fire on charcoal or wood stoves at  household level.

Akaro fire starter is a low carbon product produced as pallets when we process and recycle sawdust and millet chaff as raw materials in combination with calorific wax, acetate, phosphoprotein among others to produce low carbon, clean (smokeless) and highly burning fire starters for the market used in starting or lighting wood or charcoal stoves. Our fire starter is long lasting when burning and is smokeless which is ideal for reducing indoor pollution and smoke health related illness. Akaro fire starter we also reduce the use of unclean materials and substances to start fire on a charcoal stove or traditional fire place including burning of paraffin/kerosene, polythene, plastics, old papers, biomass, pine wood etc. Our business model resolves around clean fire starters produced at a central production unit and distributed house to house, sold through commission agents (shops/wholesalers and super markets), direct sales to customers through vending and weekly community markets 

Over 85% of households in Uganda cook on charcoal or firewood stoves and have no access to clean fire starting options. People use a range of unclean materials/ substances to start fire on charcoal or wood stoves including burning of kerosene, polythene, plastics, old papers, biomass etc. All these unclean materials cause indoor pollution, smoke related illness and disability thus out of pocket expenses on treatment mostly by women and children because of their involvement in cooking. 

Our product reduces amount of CO2 produced while starting fire thus this product will reduce on smoke related health challenges mostly among women and girls. Our product reduces indoor pollution at a house hold level Our product reduces the burden of collecting fire starting materials more especially among girls and women involved in cooking family meals Our product will quicken the time taken to start fire on charcoal and wood stoves and save that time to do other things. our product cheap 

We carried out a survey to understand the needs and challenges of community members in in starting fire on wood or charcoal stoves in Mbarara city. The responses from the survey informed our development of akariro clean fire starter. 

We developed samples while consulting with potential users which we have tested and confirmed that our akariro clean fire starters will solve the existing challenge of starting fire on charcoal or wood stoves.

we are at pilot stage of development because enough samples of our product have been produced and tested with a big number of potential users in Mbarara city south western Uganda. so far over 100 people especially women have tasted out akariro clean fire starters  

The technology used is either manual or automated customized extruder machine that is used to produce clean fire starter pallets. I also process and recycle mainly sawdust and millet chaff as part of the main raw materials in combination with calorific wax, acetate, phosphoprotein and other products to produce low carbon, clean and highly burning fire starters for the market. I have also adopted a differentiated products both powdered and sold blocks.

we also intend to develop a fire starter business management APP that we shall use to manage our business with users and agents.

currently we serve about 100 people. in one year we intend to directly reach 10,000 people after we have increased production, marketing and distribution of our product.  

In the next year our impact goal is to reduces a significant amount of CO2 produced while starting fire at the household level. we will achieve this goal by massively producing, marketing and distributing our akariro clean fire starters 

In the next year our impact goal is to reduce on smoke related health challenges mostly among women and girls due to use of unclean materials to start fire on charcoal or wood stoves. we shall achieve this goal through  sensitization of community members on dangers of excessive inhalation of carbon oxide and the need for clean/smoke free fire starters.    

In the next year our impact goal goal is to reduces indoor pollution at a house hold level among users of our Akariro clean fire  starters. we will achieve this goal by massively producing, marketing and distributing our akariro clean fire starters 

in the next year, our impact goal with our project is to create a number of jobs for the youth through clean fire starter production, marketing, distribution, vending and whole selling. we shall reach this goal through increasing demand for our product, producing at large scale and recruiting many youth the clean fire starters value chain.

our monitoring and evaluation has set a number of indictors to measure progress towards our project goal including

Proportion of population with primary reliance on clean fuels and technology

number of people using our energy efficiency and renewable product

number of people appreciating the effectiveness and efficiency of our product

number of households with reduced indoor pollution as a result of using clean fire starters

number of people confirming reduced smoke related health challenges 

The current barriers that currently exist to accomplish our goal in the next year are; 

1-low levels of advertisement, branding and marketing since my product is new on market and requires a lot of advertisement to attract new users. 

2-luck of  automated extruder machine to increase bulk production of clean fire starters . 

3-luck of quality assurance certificate from Uganda Bureau of Standards (UBOS) to qualify akariro clean fire starters to be sold in super market stores.

 4-Low staff to engage in production marketing and distribution of akariro clean fire starters to scale.

 5-luck of application of new technology including customized business APP to increase effectiveness and efficiency in doing business.  

our team comprise the following people.

Tumukunde Loyce- Ms. Tumukunde Loyce holds a degree in Gender and women Health from Mbarara University of Science and technology. Loyce has got experience and skills in women economic empowerment. 

Ms. Nuwehareza Anita. she has a diploma in accounting and currently pursuing ACCA. has has experience in financial management. 

Mr. Wagobile Davis. Mr. Davis has skills and experience in marketing, business management and currently is our production manager to our fire starter project

no partners we are working with of now

Our project empowers women and girls and am at the forefront to empowering and mentoring girls to engage in businesses to solve world challenges.

My project is for and by girls and women because, Majority women and girls are responsible for starting fire to cook family meal, therefore our clean fire starter will improve the status of women and girls involved in cooking. This is because, our clean fire starter are smoke free, reduce indoor pollution and thus reduce smoke related illness which will improve the status of women using our product. Our clean fire starter products will create job for young women and girls coming from venders, retailers, marketers and other involved in our fire starter value chain

I and my team would use HPGirls Save the World Prize to expand my clean fire starter business to employ more girls, training girls to get involved in akariro clean fire starters value chain, purchase more equipments and materials to improve my business.

My project solves the most challenge faced by community in starting fire, the project is a social venture because it has a gender lens of empowering young women and girls through trainings to improve their livelihood. the proceeds from the project will also be used to campaign against child marriage and teen pregnancy.

I and my team would use The Pozen Social Innovation Prize to expand my clean fire starter business to employ more girls, training girls to get involved in akariro clean fire starters value chain, purchase more equipment and materials to improve my business.