A Sydney graphic designer and events manager had no idea that their volunteer work with goodcompany community group, FOCHTA, would have such an impact on the lives of young people in Africa.

By volunteering for FOCHTA through goodcompany, Linda and Beth have helped the organisation achieve over $80,000 in benefits during 2006, forged invaluable relationships, and made a real difference to the lives of young people in Africa.

FOCHTA was founded in 2000 by photographer Claude Ho and his friends Dr. Leopold Buhendwa and Mr. Steven Labana (both working with Medecins Sans Frontieres) in response to the lack of social and emotional support they witnessed for people infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.

From the outset, all three decided that the best way forward was to promote education, so that young people might have a future and the chance to escape from the poverty cycle. FOCHTA was officially launched in 2003.

Trying to establish a new organisation was a difficult task and it was decided that the best way forward was to have strong internet presence and then to raise the profile with an event. FOCHTA discovered the services of goodcompany and requested skilled volunteers to implement these key actions.

In early 2006 FOCHTA requested a 'Brilliant Website Designer' to which Linda Seymour responded. Linda is a director of SiteSpace, a web solutions company, and has extensive Australian and International experience as a website developer. Linda spent approximately 30 hours bringing the website to fruition, providing services worth over $20,000.

For Linda, the experience was overwhelmingly positive.

"This has been my first encounter with Good Company and I wanted to thankyou on behalf of our team for making it easy for us to connect up with an organisation like FOCHTA and to meet and become close friends with people like Jan and Claude Ho... There aren't really words to describe the benefits for our company and for us personally for being able to do work such as this.”

The impact has also been immeasurably favourable for FOCHTA. It has enabled the organisation to blossom and has brought publicity to the fledgling organisation. The local Malawi staff and people that FOCHTA help were proud to see their part of the world being shown to the whole world as seen by a recent note to Claude Ho.

'We are very pleased and honored to see that as our eagle representing FOCHTA, with our own website, we can fly high, thanks to you.This website is very valuable for us as an organization and will allow us to perform a lot, and to share to the whole world whatever we are doing. We'd like to thank the ones who have helped you to materialise this wonderful thing. The color are green, color of hope and strengths, that's really wonderful. God bless you.Yours, Steering Committee Members'.

After the website project, FOCHTA required a skilled and experienced event manager to run a fundraising function.

In April 2006 goodcompany supplied Beth Murphy, group-marketing manager at the College of Law. The funds raised at this event were designated for the building of a youth training centre in Malawi.

The event was held at the Royal Institute of Architects and Andrew O'Keefe (Deal or No Deal Ch 7) was MC. Over $30,000 was raised, taking the benefits to FOCHTA over $80,000 since engaging with goodcompany.

This year FOCHTA will support 280 orphans with their school fees in full, a meal each day, uniforms and counselling. They are planning to set up vocational skills training for young people after the local authorities granted land.