FOCHTA celebrates 10 years!
February 2013 is FOCHTA’s 10th anniversary. FOCHTA was founded in 2003 by Claude Ho, Dr Leopold Buhendwa and Steven Labana. The principal focus has always been to provide education to orphans, thus opening a door to opportunities in their lives. At the same time, FOCHTA has also been running a program in assisting grandmothers, those who are left with orphaned children to care for, but without the financial means to do so.
Since its inception in 2003, FOCHTA has provided secondary school scholarships to 1,803 orphaned children in Thyolo-Malawi. Currently, FOCHTA is supporting 127 orphans with school fees in 18 secondary schools. Moreover, FOCHTA is supporting 16 students at the University of Malawi.
With support from FOCHTA, the following orphans have graduated into the following professionals:
1 Secondary school Teacher with a degree, 1 Social Worker with a degree, currently working at FOCHTA as a Director, 1 statistician currently doing her master’s degree in South Africa , 1 animal health expert currently working with ministry of agriculture, 1 medical assistant currently doing his degree studies, 1 clinical officer currently doing his medical degree in Kenya, 10 primary school teachers, currently working in government schools, 1 nurse, currently working with the government, 1 mechanic, currently working as FOCHTA community facilitator, 3 community development facilitators, 2 policemen, 2 tailors, 2 welders, 1 financial accountant and 1 electrician.
Almost all of these graduated students remain in Thyolo district and are supporting their community.
To promote literacy and access to books to students, FOCHTA has built four libraries in secondary schools in remote areas of Thyolo district. The fourth one is to be opened in April, 2013. Reports have shown that student’s performance in class has improved in schools where FOCHTA has built the libraries.
Since over 80 percent of the orphans we care live with grandmothers, with most parents died due to HI/AIDS epidemic, FOCHTA has set up an elderly care program aimed at assisting grandparents (“Gogoz”) with assorted donations such as goats, blankets, plastic papers for roofing houses, chickens, beehives and honey harvesting kits. The idea is to boost the income of the grannies who are weak and too old to work. Currently there are 9 gogoz groups. Through these groups, grandparents have the opportunity to help and encourage each other in addressing challenges, not just in helping their grandchildren, but also to empower them to face old age, thus reducing loneliness and developing positive living.
FOCHTA’s work has been made possible through the ever widening net of supporters from Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Belgium, and Norway.
This year will also see a major project on primary school music studies that is sponsored by KOMAI in New York. This project is scheduled to start in April 2013.
Over in Switzerland, a fundraising event will be held at Lausanne in May 2013 sponsored by the staff of the prestigious business college IMD.
To celebrate our anniversary, a concert for the entire community will be held at Luchenza on Apri 27, 2013. This will be performed by the Island Big Band who come all the way from New York. There will also be a football match and netball match played by our student beneficiaries.