This is Ryan, the boy who quenched the thirst of half a million Africans. Born in Canada in May 1991, his journey started when he was just six years old. One day, his teacher told the class about how children in Africa lived without access to clean drinking water. Ryan was heartbroken to learn that many even died of thirst while he could simply turn on a tap and drink.
With a heart far bigger than his age, he went up to his teacher and asked how much it would cost to bring clean water to those children. She mentioned an organization called WaterCan, which could build a well for about seventy dollars. That very day, Ryan ran home and told his mother Susan that he needed seventy dollars to buy a well for African children.
Susan smiled but explained that he would have to earn the money himself. Determined, Ryan started doing chores around the house, earning a few dollars each week until he finally saved up the full amount. Excited, he rushed to WaterCan only to find out the real cost of drilling a well was two thousand dollars.
Many would have given up at that point, but not Ryan. He looked at them and promised he would come back with the full amount. He continued working tirelessly, doing chores around the neighborhood and inspiring his brothers, friends, and neighbors to join him. Slowly but surely, they raised the money, and in January 1999, the first well was drilled in a small village in northern Uganda.
Ryan’s school then got involved and began supporting the project. They connected with a nearby school in Uganda where Ryan met a boy named Akana, who fought every single day just to get an education. Ryan was so moved that he begged his parents to take him to Uganda. In 2000, he finally arrived in the village. Hundreds of people lined up on both sides of the road, forming a corridor and chanting his name as he walked through.
“They even know my name?” Ryan asked the guide in awe.
The guide smiled and said, “Everyone within one hundred kilometers knows.”
Today, Ryan is thirty-three years old. He runs his own foundation, has built over four hundred wells, and has brought clean water to hundreds of thousands of people across Africa. Beyond that, he also provides education and teaches communities how to maintain the wells and manage water for the future.
While we often get lost in so many meaningless things, stories like Ryan’s remind us what true heroism looks like.