Support Alisha's Life-Saving Heart Surgery

Alisha Niwondina is a 1 year old child living in rural Kisoro Uganda. At 4 months old her mother, Kemigisha Rovence noticed her child was becoming ill with fast breathing, poor feeding, and sweating. Alisha was brought to the chronic care clinic of Kisoro district hospital in 2024 and after a echocardiogram and surgical evaluation at the Uganda Heart Institute in Kampala she was found to have a fixable congenital defect in her heart, called a perimembranous ventricular-septal defect or VSD. The surgery and medical care which would fix her heart costs 7000 US dollars. If the defect is not fixed she will be unable to grow and will die. Kemigisha and her husband Niwandinda Gordon have 5 other children and work selling electronics such as phone chargers and cables in Kisoro town, the 7000 USD cost of surgery is equivalent to 7 years of earnings for the family, as they earn about 3 dollars a day. Together with Kemigisha Rovence and Niwandinda Gordon we are raising money to support the surgery.

Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Zucker School of Medicine, and the Montefiore department of general internal medicine have been working with Kisoro District Hospital, a Ugandan government district hospital in rural Uganda since 2006. During that time period dozens of children and adults with heart defects have been diagnosed and surgically treated, most of whom are living better lives today because of what we and conscientious others have done.

Funding can be done through Go Fund Me or Venmo with title Alisha's Surgery.