Ryan Childers, a University High School senior, went to medical camp at the University of Arizona and helped build homes for needy people in Nogales, Sonora. Last summer, he spent seven weeks in a remote Paraguayan village helping teach people to make and use a safer type of wood stove. He also helped villagers learn about hygiene.
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University High senior lived in tiny S. American village to teach how to build safer wood stoves
By Angela Soto
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Ryan Childers spent almost seven weeks last summer making stoves for families in Zaguazu, a small village in Paraguay.
"I saw families with no electricity, no running water and the stoves they have in their homes do not have vents. They breathe smoke and get sick. My job was to help families makes stoves called lorenas,'' said the 17-year-old University High School senior.
Made out of clay, sand and soil, this stove can be used inside or outside. It conserves firewood, which means that wood does not have to be cut as often and trees are preserved.
The stove's burners are sealed and smoke is directed through the chimney and above the roof. Without a lorena, the kitchen fills with smoke, causing respiratory illness.
Childers says he heard an announcement at school about Amigos de las Americas, a group that travels into other countries to help people. He was one of 50 kids from all over the United States who went.
The host family he stayed with in Paraguay "treated me like a celebrity," he said.
"I loved playing soccer with the 7-year-old boy, Adrian. I tried to teach him and the other kids about this bug that can give a deadly disease called chagas," Childers said.
Also called American trypano-somiasis ("tri-PAN-o-SO-my-a-sis"), chagas is a parasite infection. Of the 16 million to 18 million people
infected with chagas, 50,000 die each year.
This is the longest Childers had ever been out of the United States, and the time allowed him to integrate into another culture.
"I've only had four years of Spanish in high school," he said, "but what I couldn't say the families would help me out."
Childers wants to become a doctor. He shadows an orthopedic doctor at Tucson Medical Center, went to medical camp at the University of Arizona, worked in radiology and recovery at TMC and in February built homes in Nogales, Sonora, with Habitat for Humanity.
"My mom is an influence in my life," he said. "She's a registered nurse."
He plans to be an Amigos de las Americas field leader after a few years in college.
Once he becomes a doctor, he plans to continue his volunteer work and to do what he enjoys most - helping people.
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