Ayebazibwe has a big, beautiful smile. She smiles often and easily. She even smiles when we stumble to pronounce her name, saying, with a laugh, “I-Bah-Zib-We.” She smiles when she talks about the success of her restaurant in Kawaempe, which she has operated for the last two and a half years. She smiles when she points out the improved cookstoves she uses in her business, because they cook quickly and efficiently, with less smoke, and use only half the fuel of a traditional stove. She smiles when she tells us how the stoves save approximately 2,000 shillings ($0.65) every day on fuel costs, about half of what she used to pay, for annual savings of almost $200. In a country where per capita income is $604, that’s like getting a 30% raise. And, of course, her biggest smile comes when she explains that she uses those savings to pay school fees for her children.

In addition to Ayebazibwe’s infectious good nature, you, as a supporter of this project, have many good reasons to smile, because, in 2018, the project reached some truly remarkable milestones:

• Stoves sold to date: 527,000
• Benefiting: 2.6 million people
• Money saved by reduced fuel usage: $217 million
• Charcoal saved: 837,000 tonnes
• Trees saved: 12.7 million
• CO₂ emissions reduction: 4.7 million tonnes

Who else is smiling about this project? Everybody, it seems. So many that the world seems brighter for it, including the 2.6 million Ugandans using these stoves and Mother Earth.