It all started with a woman on a bus trying to make her sick son better.
Chase Adam was a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica when he met that desperate mother – a woman asking for money as a way to pay for her son’s operation. It was at that moment, on a bus in a town called Watsi, that Chase found his calling.
Chase went home and founded Watsi, a non-profit crowdfunding platform where anyone around the world can donate money (as little as $5) to directly fund healthcare access and emergency medical care for people in need. Watsi’s goal is to ensure that every person, regardless of nationality and socioeconomic status, has access to decent medical care. As it states on its website, “Watsi isn’t a charity. Watsi is… bringing the world together to provide access to a fundamental human right.”
Watsi gives 100% of donations to the Universal Fund, which allocates funds to help patients who turn to Watsi for help. Watsi pays for overhead costs through private donors, foundations and corporations, thus allowing them to use all donations strictly for medical procedures.
It works like this: Watsi has a group of medical partners living in indigenous countries where proper health care doesn’t exist and life expectancies are incredibly low. Individuals who are in dire need of medical assistance (that costs less than $1500 USD) but can’t afford it can have their medical care paid for by Watsi. Because it can’t fund every patient that comes their way, Watsi focuses on helping people who need low-cost treatment that will result in high-impact, life-saving changes.
In just a few short years Watsi has helped fathers with diabetes, mothers with cancer and children with brain defects. As Watsi grows, more people around the world will be able to access the kind of health care of which they can only dream.
