$30,000 Grant Awarded to the Himalayan Stove Project by the Halton Foundation

TAOS, N.M., Nov. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- "Everyone has a right to healthy indoor air" is the motto of the Halton Foundation, which supports non-profit organizations that promote wellbeing of people suffering from poor indoor environmental air quality. The Foundation awards annual grants to non-profit organizations, research programs or initiatives promoting the wellbeing of people in indoor environments.

The Halton Foundation has granted $30,000 to the Himalayan Stove Project in support of their project of improving heath of people in the trans-Himalayan region.

More than half of the world's population, mostly in developing countries, rely on polluting biomass fuels to meet their basic energy needs. Cooking and heating using open fires or primitive stoves causes unhealthy levels of indoor air pollution which kills almost 2 million people each year - the fourth largest public health issue in the world.

The health impacts are disproportionate on women and children as they are the most engaged with the cooking. Consequently, over 50% of all indoor air pollution-attributable deaths occur in children under five years old. (WHO Fact sheet N(o)292: Indoor Air Pollution and Health, 2005)