Staff from the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (Sue Bulley, Alex Chaggar and Molly Hill) are embarking on a trip with a group of students to Lethoso on the 15 June 2019. The expedition is in conjunction with Africa’s Gift, a charity that supports largely rural areas in Southern Africa and Uganda ‘to effect change through the development of practical solutions to clearly identify needs’.
The trip in June is an opportunity for both staff and students to promote the use of the Wonderbag, a portable slow cooker that ‘continues to cook food for up to 8 hours without the use of additional electricity or fuel’ as well as to start measuring the impact this invention has on people’s (specifically women) lives in Lethoso. Their trip will include visiting the Wonderbag factory in Durban where they will see how they are made and can buy supplies using the money they have raised to then go out to the communities to introduce and demonstrate the benefits of using the invention.
Alongside this, the team will be taking a collection of unwanted shoes to the factory to be re-soled and then sold at a reduced cost to street vendors to sell on to the communities as part of Africa’s Gift’s Happy Feet initiative. Shoe bins have been installed near the front of the Heart of the Campus building and in Charles Street for people to contribute to the cause so please look out for them- the team are particularly interested in children’s school shoes as these are the most needed.
Whilst this is the first time Sheffield Hallam University staff and students have joined Africa’s Gift on their volunteering activities to Lethoso, the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice are looking to make this an annual trip for students to get involved in which would allow the opportunity for extensive research to be done on the impact the Wonderbags can have on the women of Lethoso in the form of a an ‘impact assessment tool kit’. This will look at the effect the cooking tool has on reducing sexual assault on women who will no longer have to go to collect water regularly at night for cooking purposes, where it has been reported that there is an increased risk of assaults happening during this time. It will also look at how it reduces domestic violence within the home as the reduced amount of involvement in cooking time (traditionally women would stand over open fires with cooking pots that took hours) means that they can spend more time making crafts to then sell which improves their financial contribution to the household, meaning their partners are less likely to harm them. The other aspect of the research will look at the impact the Wonderbags have on health; reducing smoke inhalation and burns on people who would otherwise use open fires for cooking.
The trip is completely self funded so staff and students have been holding fundraising events such as a sky dive which is taking place on Saturday 13 April 2019. How can you help? In addition to bringing in your unused shoes, you can donate to the teams justgiving page as well as dropping by the Heart of the Campus on the 11 March and 8 April where there will be a fundraising stall. Keep an eye on Twitter to find out more.
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