The traditional housing of the Wakhi people of Afghanistan, consists of a house with only one large room for sleeping, eating, cooking and everything else for the average 20 family members. In the middle of the room is a stove (tandur) used for baking bread, cooking and heating, but without any installation facilitating smoke extraction, these houses are often filled with smoke. Smoke pollution is a dangerous threat to good health. By decreasing smoke pollution, it has proven to reduce related lung illnesses and at times mortality in children and adults.

It became clear that with some help, the local Wakhi people could easily modify their stoves to effectively reduce the amount of smoke pollution inside the house.

In 2007, after consultation with the local community, a first stove was modified. By supplying a stove door, a water container/heater and 3 metres of pipe, the formally open fire now becomes a new closed system. In addition to a smokefree environment, families have warm water from the installed water container/ heater.

Since 2009 more than 320 Wakhi households received the materials to make their tandur smokeless.

In 2010 and 2011, six Wakhi men were trained to build these materials locally. The stove door is now modified so that it can be produced in the Wakhan without the help of electricity. These Wakhi tinsmiths will produce materials for another 150 households. They also learned to produce other tin materials, such as stoves out of barrels, buckets and metal trunks to supplement the family income in the future.

When we were distributing the first materials, one man came and literally took the materials out of our hands. He said he had been trying to build something like this himself. His children are still crying and suffering from the smoke inside his house. Now he is really happy!