Kenyan woman's stove that's redefining climate action, health

Charlot Magayi lost her mother at just two years old, and by age 10 her father had also passed away. Orphaned young and lacking a support system, she navigated life alone. At 16, she became a mother, and the struggle intensified. She dropped out of school to support herself and her daughter.

“My first job was selling charcoal in the Mukuru slums,” she recalls. “Charcoal was cheap but incredibly hazardous; the smoke caused respiratory infections constantly.”

When her daughter turned two, a severe burn from the traditional stove led to hospitalisation—a heartbreaking turning point. It ignited a determination in Charlot to find safer alternatives to harmful solid fuels.

After a two-year break, she returned to education, enrolling in adult classes before gaining admission to Kenyatta University to study Environmental Science. Her studies, with a blend of science and social studies—inspired her to lead the fight against household air pollution in Africa.

In 2017, Charlot founded Mukuru Clean Stoves (MCS), a social enterprise producing affordable, clean, energy-efficient cookstoves for underserved communities. MCS helps mothers protect their children, lower fuel consumption and reduce household air pollution.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), burning solid fuels such as charcoal and agricultural waste in open fires and traditional stoves can expose families to indoor air pollution up to 50 times above WHO’s guidelines. In Africa, more than one million annual deaths are linked to household air pollution, disproportionately affecting women and children who spend more time near cooking fires.

According to environmental experts, transitioning to improved cookstoves offers many benefits, including reduced exposure to toxic pollutants, fewer burn injuries in young children, lower fuel costs, and quicker cooking times.

However, the cost and availability of clean cooking options still pose major challenges, stopping millions of households from making the switch to safer, more sustainable alternatives.
“MCS is bridging this gap by delivering cost-effective, energy-efficient stoves that reduce household air pollution, improve health outcomes, and lessen environmental impact, ensuring that clean cooking is not a luxury, but a right for all,” Charlot explains. 

Designed to use processed biomass, a cleaner blend made from recycled charcoal, wood and sugarcane waste, MCS stoves emit up to 90 per cent less harmful pollution than open fires and 70 per cent less than traditional cookstoves. Retailing at just US$10 (Sh1,300), these stoves cut fuel costs by half, making them both affordable and health-conscious for low-income households.

On December 2, 2022, Charlot was named one of five winners of the prestigious Earthshot Prize, receiving a US£1 million grant (Sh151.4 million) to scale her clean cooking initiative.

Impact that shows

Since then, Mukuru Clean Stoves has been distributed to over 600,000 households, directly improving the lives of more than three million people across Kenya. The initiative has boosted household income by over US$700,000 (Sh90.2 million), thanks to savings on fuel and health-related expenses.

“Environmentally, we’ve helped avoid around 930,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions,” Charlot says, contributing significantly toward global climate goals while improving health and livelihoods, particularly for women and children.

Headquartered in Siaya County, MCS is East Africa’s first woman-owned factory designing and manufacturing affordable, clean cookstoves from locally recycled metal. It now operates in six markets, including Ghana and Nigeria. The Earthshot Prize funding helped triple the team, onboard more local women and launch a malaria research project.

“Thanks to an introduction by The Earthshot Prize, Mukuru Clean Stoves forged a new partnership with the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, receiving more than Sh125 million. The money is being used on a Research and Development project to develop malaria-fighting briquettes for its stoves: an innovative solution with the potential to save even more lives. We are now exploring the use of agricultural waste to manufacture mosquito repellent fuel,” says the 32-year-old.

 Data from the 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) shows that Malaria remains a major public health problem in Kenya, with 75 per cent of the population at risk of the disease. In 2023, Kenya had an estimated 3.3 million malaria cases. According to experts, most regions in Kenya are free from malaria apart from 14 regions in the lake and coastal endemic regions: Kisumu, Siaya, Homabay, Migori, Busia, Vihiga, Bungoma, Kakamega, Lamu, Taita Taveta, Kilifi, Tana River, Mombasa and Kwale counties.

Mosquito-repellent fuels give off natural repellents while cooking, helping keep mosquitoes away when families are most at risk. This means fewer bites and less chance of getting malaria.

The fuels are low-cost, easy to use, and offer a simple way for households to stay safer across Kenya and Africa. “We began our work in Homa Bay County; one of the top three counties in Kenya most affected by malaria. It’s where we conducted our initial research, set up product testing, and carried out our first distribution.”

The Earthshot Prize, launched in 2020 by Prince William (Prince of Wales) and The Royal Foundation, is a prestigious global environmental award that recognizes and supports bold, scalable solutions to the planet’s most urgent ecological challenges. 

Founded in 2017 by Filip Lövström, Mikael Gånge and Albin Wilson, Roam initially converted traditional vehicles to electric, but shifted focus to design electric vehicles tailored for African urban and rural needs, combining sustainability with practicality.

By March 2020, Roam and Keep IT Cool launched Africa’s first electric cold-chain delivery network, pairing solar-powered refrigeration with Kenyan-built, clean electric motorcycles.

According to Francis Nderitu, the founder and managing director of Keep It Cool, this collaboration not only reduces post-harvest losses and emissions among farmers, but also strengthens food security, public health, and urban climate resilience. 

“Keep IT Cool supports small-scale fishermen, poultry and fruit farmers, installing cold storage at landing sites and aggregating produce transport to markets. This reduces spoilage, extends shelf life and benefits over 10,000 people across the supply chain,” he says.

“The funding came just when we needed it—allowing us to expand and reach more farmers,” he adds.

With investment, Keep IT Cool now operates with a 70-tonne capacity, seven times its previous size, and plans to expand into East Africa, aiming to benefit up to 1.6 million people by 2030. The upgrades, including solar refrigeration and value-addition facilities, helped reduce fish loss in Lake Turkana from 40 per cent to less than one per cent.

These homegrown solutions, Mukuru Clean Stoves, Keep IT Cool, and Roam, are delivering tangible benefits, including cleaner cooking, safer food storage, greener transport, all aligned with local cultures and policies.

They’re tackling urgent challenges across Africa, from clean energy and public health to climate resilience.

Anne Angwenyi, climate advisor at the British High Commission in Kenya, remarked, “Their bold, local innovations are not only transforming lives, they’re charting a new path toward sustainability and inclusive development in our communities.”