Alexia's wish is well received
Alexia's unique wish was to deliver a water well to a remote community in East Timor. Years later she's reconnected with Make-A-Wish as a volunteer.
Kindness instilled from a young age
For her wish in 2016, teenager Alexia Madoyris succeeded in getting water to a rural East Timor community.
Ten years later, Alexia’s full-time project management job involves putting roofs over people’s heads.
And there’s more. The socially conscious Alexia also joined Make-A-Wish in 2025 as a volunteer.
The kind-hearted Alexia said her family helped shape the person she has become.
“I was just really lucky growing up,” she said.
“My dad worked really hard. Mum was able to stay home and they just always instilled - and I know it's cliché - but they did instill good values.”
Picture: Alexia, right, with her sister.
Diagnosis turns life upside down
While Alexia looks back on her childhood as fortunate, her world did turn upside down when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma at age 13.
It was an innocuous lump in her collarbone, right on her neck, that signalled the start of Alexia’s medical journey.
“Thankfully I got an ultrasound and I was diagnosed really quickly,” Alexia said
“It was a month or so later I was having surgery.
“I had cancer in my sternum, and the idea was instead of doing radiation because it could put me at risk of breast cancer, they just wanted to surgically remove it all. So, they surgically removed a few lymph nodes.”
Picture: Alexia, far left, with her two sisters.
I felt a bit bad. I was putting my siblings through something that they shouldn't have to go through
Alexia, wish child
Alexia thinks outside the square for wish
Alexia’s 12 months of treatment took a toll on her parents and her two sisters.
“My mum and dad, like my sisters, were there all the time but I think it put a strain on them,” Alexia said.
“Everyone was just trying to keep it together. I felt a bit bad. I was putting my siblings through something that they shouldn't have to go through.”
Alexia and her family received a much-welcomed boost when Make-A-Wish visited her to ask what she would like to wish for.
Alexia struggled to decide on her wish. She already had “wonderful experiences” with her family growing up. So, she pondered ‘What can I do with the Make-A-Wish team behind me’.
The answer was inspired by a visit to Thailand a few years earlier when she saw kids playing in dirty water: Alexia settled on a wish to build a well in a rural East Timor community.
Tears flow when wishing well revealed
Alexia had researched East Timor. She knew that women and girls had to walk up to 6km twice a day to get water.
And her ‘wishing well’ could allow families to grow vegetables and farm fish.
What she wasn’t sure of was could Make-A-Wish deliver such a unique wish?
To Alexia’s delight, Make-A-Wish did deliver her wish.
Alexia’s wish was confirmed the day she was invited to one of the Google offices with her family. There they viewed a video showing the finished well and heard thank you messages from locals.
“I was like, how could they actually do this?,” Alexia said.
“Once we saw that video, I was like, Oh my God, they actually did it.
“I remember crying. It was so amazing to see.”
For the second part of her wish, Make-A-Wish organised one week’s work experience at Red Cross for Alexia and her twin sister.
The wish just let me forget about treatment
Alexia, Wish child
Wish memories stay strong
Alexia said her wish had showed her almost anything was possible if a group of people come together and put their minds to something.
She said the wish had also pushed to the side some of the memories of her medical journey.
“I don’t think about anything traumatic – the medical journey – that may have happened in those years,” Alexia said.
“I just think about my Make-A-Wish journey. The Make-A-Wish memory is the stronger memory.
“The wish just let me forget about treatment. You just focus on the wish and that's such an exciting way to close that chapter of your life.”
'I wanted to help other people'
Not only has her wish had a lasting impact on her, but Alexia has been driven by seeing how impactful other wishes have been.
Alexia came into contact with many other wish kids while she was in hospital.
In 2025, after thinking about it for a long time, the 25-year-old became a volunteer with a Make-A-Wish Branch.
“I felt like I wanted to do something to help other people who were in my position or even worse off than I was as a teenager,” Alexia said.
Alexia said her first wish as a volunteer was for a little girl with leukaemia.
"It was really nice to meet the family and I think it resonated with me because, like me, the girl also has a twin sister," Alexia said.
