Documentary offers real hope

The affecting documentary Cooking to Live by filmmaker Jake Boritt traces a day in the lives of three women in the UNHCR Kebribeyah Refugee Camp located in the Somali Regional State, eastern Ethiopia. Driven from their homes by political and security turmoil, over 80% of the Kebribeyah refugees are women and children. In order to feed their families, the women spend long hours foraging outside camp for wood to fuel their cooking fires. For some of these women, such “trespassing” on neighboring land has resulted in serious injury and even death at the hands of angry farmers. The dangers of wood-burning follow the women home, where their cooking fires create smoke, filth, foul air, and chronic illness. To witness the life transformation brought about by the clean-burning ethanol stove is remarkable.