In Kenya today, smoke is silently killing. The Ministry of Health estimates that indoor air pollution causes more than 21,500 premature deaths every year, mostly linked to smoke from firewood and charcoal. School kitchens are among the biggest culprits, yet often overlooked.
A recent Miale survey across schools in Western, Nyanza, and Coast regions revealed that over 90% of kitchens still rely on smoky traditional stoves, with wood and charcoal being predominant.
The results are clear. Blackened walls, coughing kitchen staff, and a thick haze of smoke hanging in the air.
Cooking for hundreds of students daily, school cooks often stand for hours in soot-filled rooms with little ventilation. Respiratory illnesses are rife. One Homa Bay mission hospital that participated in the Miale clean cooking survey reported that nearly a third of its patients suffer from chronic coughs, asthma, or bronchitis.
This agrees with the Kenya Economic Survey 2025, which reveals that respiratory illnesses are among the leading causes for hospital visits in Kenya, with chest-related illnesses accounting for 30.2% of the 66.2 million outpatient visits in 2024, a significant increase from 2023’s 22.4%.
It is in this context that PUMUAir and Miale Solar Inventions have stepped in with a bold partnership to transform Kenyan kitchens into holistically green, smoke-free, and solar-powered hubs of health.
A Silent Health Crisis in Schools
School principals interviewed during Miale Solar’s field visits acknowledged the problem openly. “Our kitchen staff are our unsung heroes, but they are always falling sick,” said one principal in Kwale County. “We lose days of work because of chest problems. It’s not sustainable.”
The dangers go beyond staff. Many students pass through kitchens to help serve or fetch utensils, exposing them to the same hazards. The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that children exposed to household smoke are twice as likely to develop pneumonia. Extrapolated to schools, the risk is just as dire.
The WHO further cautions that household smoke, including secondhand smoke, is one of the leading risk factors for childhood pneumonia. Prolonged exposure to kitchen smoke causes pneumonia, triggers asthma attacks, worsen bronchitis, and even impairs lung growth.
But the risks don’t end with children. In 2020, the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) published evidence linking household burning of biomass and kerosene, particularly in stoves without chimneys, to cancers of the digestive tract. Oesophageal and gastric cancers, already prevalent in East Africa, are increasingly tied to daily exposure to cooking smoke.
Alfred Jatho, Head of Community Cancer Services at the Uganda Cancer Institute, puts it plainly: “With 70% of Africa’s population still relying on biomass for cooking and lighting, the health implications are substantial. While lung cancer links are weaker, the evidence for oesophageal and gastric cancers is undeniable.”
Smoke in school kitchens is a silent killer. And unless alternatives are scaled up, families across the continent will continue to pay the price with their health.
And yet, despite the scale of the problem, policy attention has lagged. While Kenya has strong campaigns on sanitation and latrine coverage in schools, clean cooking rarely makes it into the conversation.
Kitchens as the Next Frontier for Reform
Data from the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) shows that women and kitchen staff exposed to biomass smoke have a 40% higher chance of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
“In the schools where we have taken the measurements of air pollution, we have found that the air pollution in those areas whether in the kitchen, dormitory or in the playground is in excess by more than 85 times of the safe guidelines provided by the World Health Organisation,” Dr James Mwitari said, a senior research fellow of environmental health at Kemri and Co-director Clean-Air (Africa) project,
As Sumi Mehta, Vice President of Environmental and Climate Health at Vital Strategies, explains: “Most of the people who are sick today were already exposed when their mothers were cooking while they were still pregnant with them.”
Sick school kitchen staff slow down meal preparation, which in turn disrupts learning.
Principals Motivated but Trapped
During field interviews, principals voiced enthusiasm for solarization and clean cooking. However, many remain trapped by upfront costs and lack of financing models.
“If we had reliable power, we would gladly have solar and clean cooking,” said the head of Kirewe Hybrid Senior Secondary, Daniel Musimbi. “Every week we lose electricity for several hours, and cooking with firewood is hazardous to our cook. But investing in solar feels out of reach without support.”
This is the gap PUMUAir and Miale Solar are strategically filling, offering not only technology but a financing pathway for schools through a partnership with Mwalimu Express and Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB).
PUMUAir and Miale Solar: A Strategic Alliance
At the heart of the partnership is a vision: to make every Kenyan school kitchen green, clean, and resilient.
On one hand, PUMUAir specializes in air purification and clean cooking technologies that drastically cut smoke levels, ensuring kitchens remain breathable. On the other hand, Miale provides integrated solar energy solutions to power cooking, refrigeration, bakery, pumping, and lighting, reducing dependence on unreliable grid power.
“This is not just about installing stoves,” said Dr. Samora Otieno, PUMUAir’s spokesperson. “It’s about creating a holistic environment where students and staff can breathe clean air, food is prepared safely, and energy use is sustainable. Together, we’re not just replacing smoky stoves, we’re transforming the entire kitchen environment into a safe and healthy space.”
Where Government Stands
To date, the Kenyan government has launched several clean energy initiatives, but adoption in schools has been limited. The Ministry of Energy has piloted institutional stoves, while the Ministry of Education has encouraged sustainable practices in school feeding programs. But without binding policy or funding support, uptake remains slow.
Civil society experts argue that the government has been reluctant to regulate biomass use in schools, fearing backlash from budget-stretched institutions. Yet the cost of inaction is mounting.
“We cannot treat clean cooking as optional. Just as we require schools to have toilets and handwashing facilities, we must require them to have smoke-free kitchens,” says Dr. Otieno, also a public health researcher.
Why Policy Must Shift
From the Miale survey, it was concluded that three critical policy changes are urgently needed:
- National Standards for School Kitchens – Just as there are sanitation standards, kitchens should meet smoke-free benchmarks.
- Financing Frameworks – Schools need subsidies, grants, or credit facilities to adopt clean technologies without waiting for years of fundraising.
- Health Integration – Ministries of Health and Education must integrate clean cooking into health promotion campaigns, recognizing respiratory health as part of school well-being.
Without these changes, the responsibility will continue to fall on NGOs, private players, and partnerships like PUMUAir and Miale Solar. These are progressive, but not sufficient to meet national scale.
Why This Matters Now
Kenya’s education sector is expanding. With the rollout of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), school enrollment is projected to rise. More students mean more meals cooked daily. If smoky kitchens remain the norm, the health and environmental toll will double within a decade.
Globally, clean cooking is now recognized as a climate, health, and gender priority. Kenya cannot afford to lag. By embracing solutions like those offered by PUMUAir and Miale Solar, the country can position itself as a continental leader in sustainable school infrastructure.
By integrating PUMUAir’s tech with Miale Solar’s clean energy systems, Dr. Otieno says “we ensure that women and children no longer have to sacrifice their health just to prepare a meal. Ultimately, our role is to bring visibility, accountability, and science into the clean cooking space—because what you can measure, you can improve.”
Beyond Cost Savings
One of the greatest misconceptions principals hold is that clean cooking must justify itself in shillings saved. But framing the debate this way misses the bigger picture.
Protecting the lungs of staff, reducing asthma cases in children, and ensuring uninterrupted cooking during power outages are health and dignity imperatives, not mere economic calculations.
“We should not measure the value of clean air only in cost savings,” says a teacher at Waa High School. “We should measure it in lives protected.”
The Road Ahead
The PUMUAir–Miale Solar partnership is timely, but success will depend on collaboration. Policymakers must be willing to mandate standards, financial institutions must step in with flexible models, and school communities must embrace the cultural shift away from smoky fuels.
If done right, the transformation could be historic. Miale Solar imagines a future where every Kenyan school kitchen powered by the sun, free of smoke, producing meals in clean air. Miale envisions kitchen workers who no longer cough through their shifts, and students learning in classrooms unsullied by soot drifting in from next door.