Breathing Easier

One of the leading causes of illness, injury and death among the villagers of the Barillas area relates to the breathing of smoke inside the village huts from the open fires used for cooking and heat.

The Mayan Indian culture has used open fires as a source for cooking for centuries.  Unfortunately, children are often burned falling into fires, villagers get respiratory diseases, and the wood huts they live in can catch fire. This in addition to the negative impact to the environment.  Trees are cut, resulting in extreme deforestation which has been a major contributor in the horrific mud slides of recent years.  Much needed water sheds are also affected by deforestation.

Hands For Peacemaking Foundation, with their sponsoring partners are doing something about it.  The Guatemala staff was given the challenge to design and build a stove that would be highly efficient, safe for families and take any residual smoke outside the hut.

The result was the development of the Aller stove that is manufactured in the organization’s Barillas facility.  Aller stoves burn 65% less wood, are designed to greatly reduce the risk of burns, and are built in Barillas, providing jobs for the local economy.

In the past, families who have lost love ones have often related that breathing issues contributed to the loved one's death, but they lacked the money to see a doctor or purchase the medicine.  With the Aller Stove not only do they spend fewer hours of each day gathering firewood, the potential for smoke-related respiratory illnesses has all but been eliminated.

Today, the organization has manufactured and installed hundreds of stoves with the support of civic organizations, churches and concerned citizens.  Respiratory disease among villagers who have an Aller stove has virtually been eliminated.