Small Sparks, Strong Foundations

LUSAKA, December 2025 - In Garden Park Ward, just under 50 women gathered under a cloudy grey sky for an activity that sits at the heart of Zambia’s community nutrition work: a live, practical cooking demonstration.

These sessions, led by Nutrition Support Group Volunteers working closely with Ministry of Health staff, are a critical pillar of a nationwide social and behavioural change effort that equips mothers and caregivers with lifelong skills.

On this particular day, the demonstration also carried an additional layer of learning: families were introduced to the clean cooking stove, a tool designed to help them prepare nutritious meals faster, more safely, and with less cost.

Cooking Demonstrations: Where Knowledge Meets Practice

Nutrition Support Groups are trained community volunteers who act as the bridge between government health services and households formed small clusters with mothers. These volunteers are trusted figures in their communities; they visit homes, follow up on pregnant and breastfeeding women, support growth monitoring, and reinforce key health messages.

Here, at Garden Park, they walked mothers through various steps of preparing foods that are locally available, affordable, and familiar.

They demonstrated how to choose nutrient-rich foods available within the community, prepare them in ways that preserve vitamins and minerals, pound or mash them so even babies without teeth can eat, store and preserve foods safely, and plan meals that meet the needs of children in the first 1,000 days of life—when nutrition is most critical.

As one volunteer, Mary Soko explained, “It’s not about expensive food. It’s about preparing the food we already have in the right way.”

Standing at the front with baskets of vegetables, legumes, fruits, fish, and grains, Nutritionist Simon Banda delivered the session in simple style. He held up each food group—energy-giving, body-building, and protective foods—and explained their role in a child’s growth. He demonstrated how to combine foods to build complete meals, how techniques like soaking, pounding, and gentle boiling help preserve nutrients, and why the challenge in Zambia is often not the shortage of food, but the lack of knowledge on how to prepare it in ways that maximize nutritional value.

“Malnutrition is not because we don’t have food. It is because we do not always prepare food in ways that give maximum value. What we have locally is powerful if we use it well,” he said. And this is exactly why live cooking demonstrations matter because mothers can see, taste, and practice the lessons for themselves.

How the Clean Cooking Stove Fits In

After the nutrition lessons, the clean cooking stove comes into focus as an enhancing tool, a catalyst that makes nutritious cooking easier, faster, and safer.

A trainer guides mothers through how the clean cooking stove works—from how quickly it lights and how the eco-pellets burn cleanly with almost no smoke, to how it drastically reduces cooking time for foods like beans or dry fish and how households can lease it through a simple fuel-based model. Because this approach is integrated into existing government nutrition activities, families are encouraged to adopt not just the technology, but the nutrition behaviours that make it meaningful.

Through UNICEF’s support, every household joining the pilot receives an initial bag of beans for free and later contributes K30 (+/-USD 1.31) per kilogram which is far below market prices. The goal is not dependency, but accessibility.

For many families, the stove simply unlocks what beans have always offered: affordable nutrition which is rich in protein, available all year round and easy to prepare.

Women’s Voices:

For mother of two and an owner of a clean cooking stove, Rita Chibuye, the combination of nutrition lessons and clean cooking has been transformative. “I save time. I save money. And now I know how to prepare food better for my children,” she says. “I also have less trouble lighting up a fire and no longer worry about my family choking on harmful carbon monoxide fumes.”

Another mother and user of the clean cooking stove, Memory Chisha, explained that beans have become a regular part of her family’s meals. “Now we eat beans at least three times a week. Before, I avoided them because they took too long. With the stove, it’s quick—and we learn new ways to cook.”

Alongside her is Faustine Kindo, who didn’t hesitate to join the pilot after hearing about it from a neighbour.  After receiving her stove a few months ago, Rita now attends cooking demonstrations not just to watch, but to learn how to prepare nutritious meals faster, safer, and with confidence.

The Nexus in Action

What makes this initiative unique is not the technology; it is the system strengthening behind it. The programme is fully embedded in the Ministry of Health’s community nutrition sessions, health facility outreach and the 1,000 days approach through the existing Nutrition Support Group structures.

UNICEF’s role is catalytic in supporting government to enhance and expand what already exists. By integrating the clean cooking stove into routine government-led education, the programme ensures sustainability, local ownership, and the potential to scale to new districts.

Families shifting from charcoal to eco-pellets are reducing carbon emissions, saving forests, protecting their children from smoke exposure, spending less money on fuel, and preparing nutritious meals more efficiently.

But the most powerful change is behavioural. Mothers now understand how to use what is already in their homes or in their gardens to nourish their children. In a country where food is available, but malnutrition persists, this knowledge is life-changing.

At Garden Park, the session ended with shared plates of nutritious foods, laughter, and a sense of empowerment among the women. These small sparks of knowledge, skill and clean energy are laying strong foundations for healthier families and a more resilient Zambia.

And it all begins in the kitchen.