A touching Australian charity effort has extended the life of one young Timorese boy.

A local charity, the East Timor Hearts Fund, has flown 11-year-old Jeca Periera and has mother to Melbourne for surgery to widen his heart valve.

Jeca suffered a case of rheumatic fever as a young child, which damaged the valves in his heart, making it difficult to breathe and leaving him dangerously underweight.

Because of this, he was unable to attend school or otherwise have a normal childhood.

Doctors said Jeca could be dead within six months unless action was taken.

The East Timor Hearts Fund found out about his case and helped arrange life-saving surgery in Australia.

The procedure - a mitral balloon valvotomy - was carried out at the MonashHeart centre in Melbourne, free of charge by emeritus director of cardiology, Professor Richard Harper.

The procedure sees the insertion of a small balloon into one of the narrowed heart valves, which is then repeatedly inflated and deflated to slowly stretch the narrow valve, allowing more blood to flow.

It was performed by Professor Harper and his operating team of 15 specialists, who said at the end that the valve area was now two to three times wider than it was.

Twenty-four hours after the procedure Jeca was up and about, ready for a visit this week to Melbourne Zoo.