Binto - Senior Supervisor in Hagadera

*Most refugees living in Dadaab refugee camps have fled from Somalia as a result of the ongoing civil war.  There is little hope of returning home as the country is still embroiled in conflict and there is little opportunity for resettlement in Kenya.  Dadaab is currently home to approximately 300,000 refugees.*

My name is Binto, I have been living in Dadaab at the Hagadera refugee camp for 20 years now. In September 2007, when ILF introduced the rocket stove project to Dadaab I began working for them.  I am the senior supervisor of ILF’s Hagadera operation. I basically supervise and monitor the staff, do the daily reports, conduct the stove training sessions and manage the distribution.  ILF’s rocket stove project is appreciated by the refugee community because we give them a free stove, they save on firewood and they understand that it is helping protect the environment!

Hoi Trinh, Director of Program Development, visits the ILF team in Hagadera  

ILF Kenya - Living and Working in the Dadaab Refugee Camps

 50 miles from the Somalia border are the Dadaab refugee camps. This is the place I’ve called home for the past 15 months. Contrary to what one might think, this place has life, food, water, commerce, transportation means, cell phone reception, internet (occasionally at 3G speeds!) and the agency staff compounds in Dadaab town frequently throw down some of the best/craziest parties!


It’s not all fun and games though out here. The seemingly never-ending conflict in Somalia has seen the population of Dadaab’s 3 camps rise to over 260,000 individuals (approximately 4500 arriving per month since Jan 2010). The majority of these refugees are Somali, but you also have Ethiopians, Eritreans, Sudanese and other nationalities living in these camps. Shelter and cooking fuel are a major problem out here. This being a semi arid area, twigs (for shelter) and firewood (for cooking) are quite scarce.


Therefore, anything that reduces firewood consumption is an essential part of the Dadaab Refugee operation.  ILF’s rocket stove helps save 30% of firewood usage compared to the open (3 stone) fire the refugees initially used. I oversee this project out here and have 15 staff in Hagadera camp and another 10 in Ifo camp.  All our staff are refugees, working for us under the ‘incentive worker’ program.


Some of the biggest pluses of my job is that I get to go out into the refugee blocks and mix and mingle with the refugees to get their reactions to our stoves, hear their stories, take walks into the camp markets and hang out with the kids in the blocks. 

One of my biggest highlights was seeing a lady who used our stoves to make ‘samosas’ that she then sold in the market. She was quite pleased with our stove, and said it improved her profit margins, as she now spent less on buying firewood.

I’m really glad to have gotten this opportunity to work out here, see this highly unique situation /station (there’s no way to really explain this place to anyone who hasn’t been here themselves!) and be part of a project that is not only helping conserve the environment, but also helping the refugees help themselves.


Jason Monteiro
Environmental Program Officer
Dadaab, Kenya 

ILF Uganda

I am Amandine Desaunay, the new Uganda Country Director for ILF since May 2010. Although I am new to ILF I am not new to Uganda as I have lived here for eight years and I don’t intend to leave! I came to Uganda to do a three-month internship after my second master’s degree (in Humanitarian Assistance) and I never left. After the internship I entered the humanitarian field, working for various organizations, including UN and a number of NGOs.  My new post with ILF is very exciting to me as ILF is different from other big organizations I have worked for; it is more dynamic and flexible and there is more room for initiative, changes and expression.

ILF has been in Uganda since 2006 and is currently running two main programs: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion (WASH) and Environment, specifically the production and distribution of energy efficient cooking stoves for wood and charcoal.

To be able to implement these programs ILF Uganda has a team of 27 dedicated members.  The team can be presented in 3 sections: 2 program teams and 1 support team. The WASH program team comprises of 1 program manager, 4 drillers, 2 hydro technicians and 3 Sanitation and Hygiene Officers. The Environment team comprises of 2 Program Managers (one for Lira and one for Kampala, where ILF is about to expand its programs to), 2 commercialization officers, 2 stoves officers and 1 production officer (based in the stove factory). The support team comprises of: 1 logistics manager, 1 admin and finance manager, 2 drivers, 4 watchmen and 1 cleaner.

ILF has its own drilling equipment and is therefore self reliant within the whole process of drilling, from determining where water is to installing the wells with efficient pumps and testing the quality of the water.  While these tasks are handled by the drillers and hydro technicians, the sanitation team takes care of the software component of the program, training community members on how to maintain cleanliness of the water points drilled by ILF, creating and training hygiene promotion trainers at the village level in order to attain improved hygiene practices, and promoting latrines construction at the household level.

The commercialization team is in charge of promoting, marketing and selling ILF Okelo Kuc charcoal stoves to a vendor network that reaches many major cities and trading centers all over Uganda. The stove team is in charge of institutional stoves construction as well as what ILF calls humanitarian stove distribution, which are rocket stoves for villagers in Lira region.  The production officer is in charge of the factory where all the ILF bricks (a mix of clay and rice husk for better heat retention) for Institutional and rocket stoves are produced as well as the whole Okelo Kuc stoves. He supervises a contractor team of 20 people who help in making stove jackets for the Okelo Kuc design, mix clay and rice husk for the bricks, mold the bricks, and pack and paint the stoves.

The support team is crucial to the successful and smooth running of the programs. It is this team that is in charge of all purchases of materials and items needed for programs, maintain all the equipments and vehicles, and drive the programs team safely (most of the time!) to the field, guard ILF’s teams and properties and keep ILF office and guesthouse clean and fresh and make all of us keep our good moods throughout.

ILF Uganda team likes to call itself a family and it is really a family (that would make me the mama but I don’t mind!) who cares about each member and gives equal importance to all brothers and sisters and parents. We stand tight in time of sorrow (death of any members’ relatives, accident of colleagues…), we share and discuss when problems arise and we find solutions together. We are a family, we are friends and we are colleagues all at the same time. This makes our daily work enjoyable, energetic and peaceful.  

Warm regards from Uganda.

Amandine Desaunay