Pulitzer Center Update

This Week: Cooking With Fire

August 29, 2017 | Newsletter
By
Tom Hundley
In Jocotenango, Guatemala, Rosa de Sapeta's family used to avoid her smoke-filled kitchen. But since an aid group helped her replace the open fire with a cleaner burning stove, she says, "I have company while I cook." Image by Lynn Johnson. Guatemala, 2017.

In Jocotenango, Guatemala, Rosa de Sapeta's family used to avoid her smoke-filled kitchen. But since an aid group helped her replace the open fire with a cleaner burning stove, she says, "I have company while I cook." Image by Lynn Johnson. Guatemala, 2017.

Home Fires Burning

Michelle Nijhuis and Lynn Johnson

Cooking can be hazardous to your health. Grantees Michelle Nijhuis and Lynn Johnson report for National Geographic that “some three billion people around the world cook their food and heat their homes with open or barely contained fires, and while the smoke dissipates quickly, its accumulated costs are steep.” According to Michelle, the typical cooking fire produces about 400 cigarettes’ worth of smoke an hour, and prolonged exposure can cause respiratory infections, eye damage, heart and lung disease, and lung cancer.  Efficient and inexpensive cook stoves are becoming widely available, but it is not always easy to overcome ingrained culinary habits and longstanding household traditions.

Image from PBS NewsHour video "In the Fight Against ISIS, Kurds Seek Chance to Govern Themselves." Syria, 2017.

Image from PBS NewsHour video "In the Fight Against ISIS, Kurds Seek Chance to Govern Themselves." Syria, 2017.

'They Have Never Lost a Battle'

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

In the final two segments of her PBS NewsHour series from Syria, Gayle Lemmon looks at the role played by Kurdish fighters—many of them women—and the difficult process of rebuilding after ISIS.

Kim Wall. Image by Tom Wall/AP.

Kim Wall. Image by Tom Wall/AP. 

Kim Wall, 1987-2017

Tom Hundley

We join with Kim’s many friends and colleagues around the world in mourning her death. Her work, including this story from Cuba for the July issue of Harper’s, informed and inspired us all.

 

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