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	En´Corps! International, Inc.
	Creating Self-Sustaining Micro-Enterprise - Fighting Deforestation!
EnCorps International, Inc. Is a Non-Profit Corporation Our Mission   Our Vision Micro- Enterprise Solar Bakeries   Solar Oven Assembly Plants   In The News   Contact Us: EnCorps International (719) 481-6228 Fax: (719) 487-8243	Promoting Renewable Natural Resources BENEFITS OF SOLAR COOKING USING GLOBAL SUN OVENS & MICRO-SUN-BAKERIES can have an enormous impact on the everyday life of millions of people by: Reducing the demand on forests. Reducing health hazards. Improving women's conditions. Helping to clean the air that we breathe. Here, a local woman is employed in the operation of the Micro-Sun-Bakery, providing financial assistance to her family.  She is putting a tray of bread dough into the oven after just taking another batch of bread loaves out of the oven which are setting on the trailer.  One batch out and another one in to bake!  30-80 loaves an hour, depending on the type and size of each loaf. The Villager Sun Ovens create jobs for the local people, help to fight deforestation and desertification, help to clean up our air (are smokeless), improve the health and well-being of women and children, help to empower deserving poor people to operate and own their own micro-business, and thereby raising the quality of life for themselves and their families. The Villager can bake 35-70 loaves of bread an hour, while employing 12-18 people in the bakery operation.  Rice, beans, tortillas and virtually anything you can normally cook in a conventional wood-burning oven, can be cooked/baked in the Sun Oven - without burning another tree! 1.  Two billion households depend on wood and charcoal to prepare food and the worldwide supply  of wood is rapidly disappearing. The demands of massive population growth, and the inefficient conversion of wood to charcoal, have outstripped much of the world's forests ability to regenerate, creating a phenomenon known as deforestation. Deforestation is the gravest environmental crisis facing the world today. Its far-reaching effects include: The decreasing availability of firewood Removing the trees from an area is to remove its source of life. (Deforestation has left more than 25% of the continent of Africa almost useless for cultivation.) Forests protect the soil against erosion and reduce the risks of landslides and avalanches. Forests increase the rate that rainwater recharges groundwater as well as control the rate that water is released in watersheds, helping sustain freshwater supplies. Forests affect the climate. The occurrence and strength of floods and droughts increase when they are eliminated. Forests are an important source of oxygen. Forests store large amounts of carbon that are released when trees are cut or burned. 2. Wood, stubble, dung, and grass are used daily in about half the world's households as energy for cooking and heating. In most parts of the Third World they are burned in open fires or inefficient stoves in kitchens with little or no ventilation.  Bio-mass smoke has many harmful effects which can cause or contribute to:   Acute respiratory  infections  (Respiratory  infections alone cause  between four and five  million deaths per  year among small  children) Pneumonia Tuberculosis Cancer Lower birth weights Cataract Nervous and  muscular fatigue 3.  As the supply of wood  decreases, women must  travel great distances to find wood. Many women in developing countries must spend several hours each day collecting fuel-wood thus, placing themselves and their children at high risk for rape, abuse and accidents.

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