AFRICARE Nigeria, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), on Thursday said its campaign to promote the use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) was yielding result.

The Programme Manager of the NGO, Mrs Shike Adekanye, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

Adekanye spoke on the sideline of an event organsied by the African Development Bank (AfDB) to commemorate the 2018 International Women’s Day.

She said the NGO had visited over 16,000 households in Lagos and Abuja within in the last one year to encourage women to switch from cooking with firewood to LPG.

Adekanye said she was worried by a report released by the world Health Organisation (WHO), which indicated that 98,000 women die annually in Nigeria due to health issues caused by using firewood.

The report says if a woman uses firewood to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner, it is equivalent to smoking between three to 20 packets of cigarettes a day.

“Our aim is to take the campaign to the 36 states of the Federation,” she said.

She said cooking should be made easy, less hazardous and also cheaper if women and Nigerians switched to cooking with LPG.

“Africare is creating awareness to let women and people who cook know that 98,000 women die annually for using unhealthy fuel.

“Cooking with firewood tells deeply on the health of a woman, her skin, eyes and respiratory system. Cooking with firewood is more expensive, time consuming and causes environmental damage.

“Firewood cannot be regulated, so when using it, the woman has to go very close to it by which she inhales smoke, the fire warming her skin and blood. It is actually stressful for the woman and her health,” Adekanye said.

On upgrade to gas, she said that the campaign had reached Lagos and Abuja.

Adekanye said the campaign encouraged the use of LPG because it was a clean fuel.

On safety measures, she said Africare Nigeria had been working with the Nigeria Fire Service to train women on safety measures to prevent gas explosion. (NAN)

– Mar. 8, 2018 @ 18:55 GMT |