WECF - Issues - Energy

Safe Energy

In wintertime, the pupils and teachers of the Armenian village Hayanist need to wear coats and hats in the classrooms to stay warm. The school has insufficient insulation, heating and electricity to keep out the cold. The current heating system, consisting mainly of kerosene stoves, emits fumes causing respiratory diseases. Since some school children were hospitalized because they suffered from a carbon monoxide poisoning in 2006, the teachers turn of the heating before the students enter the classrooms. They prefer the cold to the smoke.

Many people in the rural areas of the Caucasus, Central Asia and Eastern Europe experience severe energy poverty. Often they do not have access to gas supplies and they are too poor to buy firewood. To heat their houses and cook their meals, they burn waste materials like plastics and tar. Also schools try to cut down their expenses by using cheap fuels to heat the classrooms. Due to bad ventilation and leaking pipes students and teachers inhale the poisonous fumes. They risk being poisoned by carbon monoxide and risk damage of the nervous system.

WECF cooperates with local organizations to improve the access to affordable and renewable energy and to cut back on the use of energy in general. In the Armenian village Hayanist, for example, WECF started to work on a concept to improve the energy situation in the school and to initiate a sustainable development for the school and the village as a whole.

In addition to project implementation on the local level, WECF and the WECF partner organizations advocate for safe and sustainable energy at the national and international level. The WECF energy working group handles upcoming events like the International Renewable Energy Conference and the UN Climate Change Conferences. Also, the working group provides information and initiates discussions about energy production and conservation.

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