Doña Justa

Doña Justa Nunez is one of the rare ones. Fed up with respiratory issues that plagued her and her friends in her community, she launched a women-led initiative to get smoke out of people’s kitchens. Driven by a vision of better health and a cleaner environment, she got the attention of nonprofit organizations working with her local church, who set out to design a better wood-burning cookstove in her village.

They tried several designs throughout the early 1990’s with mixed success, until a group of cookstove designers from Aprovecho Research Center, working with Trees, Water & People and local NGO AHDESA, arrived in the Aldea de Suyapa after Hurricane Mitch. The team wanted to address the challenge of firewood scarcity, and accepted Justa’s advice of what design features were indispensable for a Honduran cook like herself. The result was the Justa cookstove - named after her, in honor of her leadership and counsel during the design process. Since then, this stove has helped reduce deforestation and improve the respiratory health of millions of women, children and families across Central America.