St. Kizito High School Namugongo - Uganda

In a groundbreaking demonstration of practical climate education, St. Kizito High School, Namugongo, partnered with the Centre for Inclusive Green Skills (CIGS), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), and the UAE Government to host Uganda's most comprehensive Clean Cooking Cook-Off, a live, side-by-side scientific comparison of eight different cooking technologies that transformed students into evidence-based ambassadors for clean energy.

The Clean Cooking Capacity Building for Schools Project, led by Kakembo Brian, Sustainability Director at CIGS, gave students the rare opportunity to cook identical meals, dry beans, rice, matooke, beef, and spinach, across every major cooking method used in Uganda today. Each stove was equipped with energy monitors, timers, and weighing scales, turning the school into a functioning clean energy laboratory.

The results were striking. Electric Pressure Cookers (EPCs) emerged as the outright winner, ranked #1 for both cleanliness and user-friendliness. They cooked 1kg of beans in just 50 minutes for only UGX 378, compared to UGX 4,482 and over two hours on a traditional charcoal stove, and UGX 3,750 on firewood. Students were astonished that beans, traditionally a multi-hour cooking affair, could be ready in under an hour with zero smoke. Electric Hot Plates took second place, followed by gas stoves, ethanol stoves, improved briquettes, improved charcoal, traditional charcoal, and finally firewood at the bottom.

Perhaps most powerfully, the cook-off brought the abstract Clean Cooking Tier framework to life. Students could physically see why EPCs sit between Tier 4–5 while firewood remains stuck at Tier 0. The firewood open-fire station became the defining emotional moment, students were visibly disturbed by the smoke, many stepping away to escape the irritation, with pots turning black and the cooking area overwhelmed by heat. This single observation did more to communicate the urgency of Uganda's clean cooking transition than any lecture could.

The event reached beyond students, engaging teachers and parents who all reported it was their first time seeing such a direct, data-rich comparison of cooking technologies. Participants left equipped with real numbers, real experiences, and real conviction, the foundation of authentic community advocacy.

Key achievements include: successfully testing 8 cooking technologies under controlled conditions; generating a full comparative dataset on cost, fuel consumption, preparation time, and cleanliness; demystifying community fears around EPC safety; producing powerful visual documentation of clean versus polluting methods; and strengthening the institutional case for schools nationwide to transition away from biomass cooking.

By transforming students into hands-on researchers and clean cooking advocates, St. Kizito High School Namugongo has set a replicable national model. The project proves that clean cooking education is most powerful when it is tasted, timed, weighed, and witnessed, and positions the school as a frontline leader in Uganda's green skills movement, directly advancing both SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and SDG 13 (Climate Action) through youth-driven action.