Video - How BRIGHT volunteers make an impact 

Richard Bennison, Chief Operating Officer, KPMG Europe: We have a lot of bright minds in KPMG and it's about using those minds to help make the world a brighter place.  Part of our key vision is to be best for our people, our clients and our communities and a lot of people ask, why communities?  Why is that important?  And for me it's about making sure that they work we do with clients, the work that we do with people has a benefit as well for the wider communities.  As the world develops then both clients and people are looking for wider communities and helping Not for Profit organisations with some of the skills they need to make sure they can meet their objectives.

Fairtrade

Benjamin Gatland, Standards Development Manager, Fairtrade Africa: I think what makes Fairtrade unique is that we harness the market to achieve our development goal.

Amos Thiong’o, Regional Coordinator Eastern Africa, Fairtrade Africa: It's a win-win situation whereby the consumer gets the best product and as well he exercises his purchasing power to ensure that the person who produced this good commodity does not go starving.

Benjamin Gatland: What the KPMG team now has done is created fantastic training modules around financial planning and financial management which we can use to distribute to hundreds of producers in Africa.

Wilson Tuwei, Board Chairman, EPK Outgrowers Empowerment Project: Small scale farmers always do not have the understanding of many things and the coming in of KPMG will assist in making these farmers particularly keep their records in what they are doing.

Kelly Martin, Graduate Trainee, Audit, KPMG UK: I've been working on putting together some training modules for Fairtrade Africa.  We've compiled ten different modules on subjects like financial management, budgeting.  This is all to help the farmers and the small producers empower themselves financially.

Katy Vu, Assistant Manager, Audit, KPMG UK: I think the farmers will really benefit from all the work we've been doing.  That's mostly the feelings we get from going out to the field and teaching them and they were all very positive about our modules.  They were all saying that they would apply almost immediately.  Almost all of the farmers at the end of the day they are not just farmers, they're businessmen, businesswomen and I think it's a great way for KPMG to use the expertise that we have.

Wilson Tuwei: KMPG family will really assist the farmers in the climate change issues.

Nyaga Erastus, Fairtrade Tea Farmer, Rukuriri Tea Factory: Climate change has affected the tea farmer greatly.  But I also believe this can be reversed.  As we were growing up the rainfall was quite enough and one could predict when rain would come.  That change of climate has also very much affected tea production.

Kelly Martin: The highlight for me was meeting kids who go to a school built purely from Fairtrade money.  That was very humbling, I think, to think that before Fairtrade came along these kids hadn't been given the opportunity of an education and that was exactly what me buying Fairtrade coffee in England could do.

Nyaga Erastus: Fairtrade is helping me as a person, me as my, as a family man, in a big way.

Child Helpline International

Dumisile Nala, Chief Executive Officer, Childline South Africa: ChildLine is very important because in South Africa we've got about 18 million children.  ChildLine offers them a toll-free helpline which is really a lifeline for them.  We are interacting with a lot of children who are or who have become orphaned and vulnerable because of the HIVAIDS issue in South Africa and those children are really vulnerable.

Mbachi Mughogho, Finance Officer, Childline South Africa: Working with KPMG has been, it's very helpful, as somebody who is coming from a financial background.  It's really helped us in the sense that through the, through they trained us as the way we can improve our work and the possible ticket into the next levels as far as our accounts department is concerned.  We need to be as accountable and transparent as we can.

Japp Zijlstra, Trainee, KPMG Netherlands: This was the first consulting experience for me.  It helps to see how you really have to work together with the client and you cannot just think of the best solution theoretically; it's more about interaction and actually making sure that what you come up with is implemented.

Katrien Van De Velde, Manager, Quality and Risk, KPMG Belgium: You are in a completely different country that maybe you'd never explore yourself and you have the experience from inside out, as well.  Now you're jumping into their world and it's really sometimes confronting the idea you have about the country and then be inside really from their point of view.  It's really amazing how there is a difference between those two views you can have.

Restless Development

Nik Hartley, Chief Executive, Restless Development: Restless Development is the youth-led development agency and it was founded on the premise that there is a huge resource of young people in nearly all of the developing countries in the world that are not being utilised in a serious way.  To use Uganda as an example, 72 percent of the country are under the age of 25.  Of those, the employable young people, it's somewhere like 85, 86 percent are unemployed.

Joseph Mabonga, Programme Officer, Youth Empowerment, Restless Development: One of the main things that make young people make bad choices is because they are not empowered economically.  So we believe that if we train them in a skill that they can be able to start something then they can be economically empowered.

Kurt Kuckelmanns, Advisor, Risk and Compliance, KPMG Germany: I have been working on mainly three issues.  First I prepared a communication and presentation training for the whole staff.  Second I prepared an IT training, because we found out that there's an urgent need for IT development.  And thirdly I prepared a fundraising profiling toolkit.

Robyn Agoston, Graduate Trainee, Performance and Technology, KPMG UK: I've been working with their management committee to help build the capacity of the leadership and giving them some tools to really take them from delivery mode into their long term, strategic vision of the organisation.  I think the key thing here was to come in and treat them like I do every other client; come in, assess the problem and deliver high quality, high value work.  And I think we've really had some successes here.

I would absolutely encourage people to apply to the Bright programme next year.  It's an incredible experience.  It's something new.  It's something different and it's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Kurt Kuckelmanns: You see the people out there having a smile on their face.  You know that it can be a success story and they know, as well.

Katy Vu: It has been an amazing experience both on a personal level to travel to a faraway country and see your expertise being put to work and see how KPMG can help the small farmers, not just big businesses.

Richard Bennison: I believe that the individuals who've been on the programme will be better client people as a result.  The personal satisfaction, the richness of experience, the deepening of their knowledge and experience and what they will bring back when they come back to their countries in Europe is huge.

Robyn Agoston: To be able to experience the energy and enthusiasm of Restless Development and really make a difference to the young people in Uganda, I will carry that with me for the rest of my life.