Experience

Mirador began work in 2004 with 3 employees. We now have 220 direct and indirect employees. Here is the secret to our success!

Hondurans love our stoves: they provide better health, use less wood and help the environment.

Our secret?

• We do not give away anything for free.
• We build stoves and we monitor and maintain them.
• We won’t build a Dos por Tres unless we have a written request.
• We don’t pay for marketing; our success is from word of mouth endorsement.
• We won’t build a stove unless it serves the poorest of the poor.

The family does not pay us cash. They share in the cost of its stove by providing materials (worth about $12-15) and time. The materials we require are common in the villages and do not constitute a barrier to participation for even the poorest families.

Proyecto Mirador pays technicians to build each Dos por Tres stove in a family home. We provide all high value special stove parts for installation, including the plancha (cooktop), ceramic pieces for the firebox (stove mouth), the chimney and a grate to improve efficiency.

We revisit homes to follow up with training on the use and maintenance of the stove.

The popularity of the Dos por Tres is proven by results of our surveys, our pile of solicitations, awards we receive, and local government approval.

We have a 2-year backlog of written requests from women who have heard about the stove and want to have them constructed in their villages. Here is a sample of some of the solicitudes we have received.

Even children understand the benefits of the stove. In September, 2008, a contest was held to name Proyecto Mirador's improved design of the La Justa stove. School children in La Vega, a village of about 130 homes, were asked to suggest a name, prepare drawings, and list the benefits of the stove.

The name Dos por Tres was selected from more than 150 entries. Reina Jaquelin Mejia, a young girl of 11, suggested the name Dos por Tres because it is Honduran slang for “double time,” or doing something quickly. She understood that the new stove was quick to boil water, require less wood, remove smoke from her house and, keep her home cleaner.