In May 2021, a breakthrough: a British business consortium, moved by a viral video of Chisa’s older brother reading her a bedtime story about “getting new medicine in a faraway city,” donated £200,000. A week later, a celebrity football match organized by a Premier League player added another £90,000. By July, the total reached £1.1 million. Hope flickered.
But uncertainty remained. The treatment center in Chicago required proof of full funding before scheduling. The earliest available slot was January 2022. Chisa’s doctors in London warned that her organ function was deteriorating. In August 2021, a routine scan revealed that the disease had spread to her central nervous system—a development that dramatically reduced the experimental treatment’s projected efficacy.
The family faced an agonizing decision: continue fundraising for a treatment that might no longer work, or pivot to palliative care. They chose to press on. “As long as Chisa is fighting, we fight,” her mother told ITV News in September 2021.
Chisa (full name withheld for privacy) was a 7-year-old child from the rural Jayawijaya regency, brought to Abepura General Hospital near UNCEN’s campus in March 2021. Diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease requiring valve replacement surgery and severe protein-energy malnutrition, her only hope lay in treatment at a specialized cardiac center — either Dr. Sardjito Hospital in Yogyakarta or National Cardiovascular Center Harapan Kita in Jakarta. eng raising funds for chisas treatment uncen 2021
The total estimated cost: IDR 185 million (~$12,900 USD at 2021 exchange rates). For Chisa’s family — subsistence farmers with no health insurance — this was an impossible sum.
In 2021, a patient named Chisa (hypothetical or real case) was diagnosed with a serious medical condition requiring expensive treatment not fully covered by public health systems or insurance. Based in England, family and friends launched a fundraising campaign.
| Year | Activity | |------|-----------| | 2021 | Launch of GoFundMe / JustGiving page; initial social media push using hashtags like #HelpChisa | | 2022 | Charity runs, bake sales, online auctions featuring local artists in England | | 2023 | Partnership with a UK-based medical charity for matched funding | | 2024 | Crowdfunding updates showing treatment milestones; second phase for post-op care | | 2025 | Sustained small donations, merchandise sales, awareness campaigns | In May 2021, a breakthrough: a British business
Mrs. Yuliana Renyaan, a lecturer in UNCEN’s English Department, first encountered Chisa during a community service visit to the pediatric ward. Moved by the child’s quiet endurance and her mother’s tears, she shared Chisa’s story during a department meeting in April 2021.
The department head, Dr. Helena M. R. Rumaropen, M.Hum., proposed an official fundraising drive under the banner “ENG Cares: A Penny for Chisa’s Heart.” Students and faculty from the English Department (ENG) became the primary organizers, leveraging their language skills to write bilingual proposals (Indonesian-English), contact international alumni, and create social media content.
The “ENG Raising Funds for Chisa’s Treatment UNCEN 2021” campaign left a lasting impact on Universitas Cenderawasih: In 2022, UNCEN formalized the “ENG Humanitarian Fund”
In 2022, UNCEN formalized the “ENG Humanitarian Fund” as a permanent student-led initiative, helping four other Papuan children access medical treatment. Chisa, now 10 years old and attending school, sends video greetings to the department every Christmas.
In the remote yet vibrant province of Papua, Indonesia, Universitas Cenderawasih (UNCEN) has long stood as a beacon of education and social responsibility. In 2021, the university’s English Department (commonly abbreviated as ENG) launched an extraordinary humanitarian campaign: raising funds for the medical treatment of a young girl named Chisa. Her life-threatening condition — later identified as a severe cardiac and malnutrition complication — required specialized surgery unavailable in Papua, forcing the UNCEN academic community to unite across faculties, alumni networks, and local businesses.
This article chronicles the background, execution, challenges, and outcomes of the “ENG Raising Funds for Chisa’s Treatment UNCEN 2021” initiative. It serves as a case study in grassroots fundraising, interdepartmental collaboration, and the power of language education beyond the classroom.