A young Sydney Anglican is giving up her comfort and security to work in one of the most desperate places on earth.

In a few weeks Joanna Gadd will farewell her family and friends and journey to South Africa, where she will spend the next 12 months working in an AIDS orphanage near Durban.

The Leichhardt 22-year-old will be volunteering at the Christian-based God's Golden Acre, located in the province of KwaZulu Natal near the village of Cato Ridge.

In her care will be approximately 100 children who have been orphaned or abandoned.

Some are HIV positive while others had parents who have died from AIDS and related illnesses.

Joanna, a member of Annandale's Christians in the Media ministry, says she has been blessed by being born into a Western country with a loving family and wants to share God's love with others less fortunate.

"God gave up everything for me when I didn't deserve it, and so I want to give my life to serve him," she says.

"It's evident that God cares for the oppressed, the broken and the suffering, and he wants us to care too."

The number of local people infected with HIV/AIDS where the orphanage is located is 36 per cent, the highest in South Africa, which already has the highest rate of AIDS in the world.

These grim statistics mean the community in which Joanna is working is likely to have the highest rate of AIDS infection anywhere on earth.

While in South Africa Joanna hopes to volunteer with projects run by World Vision and will also be involved in outreach to local communities and will organise child sponsorship, building projects and HIV/AIDS education.

She will also support Australian missionaries Richard and Lindsey Parker, who are volunteers with a church in Johannesburg that works in the squatter camps of Kwa Thema and Tskane.

Joanna was motivated to embark on her mission after a university exchange program to Chile.

While studying she volunteered at a church-run camp for disadvantaged children from a nearby shanty town and worked with a Christian project organising child sponsorship.

Joanna recently completed a Bachelor of Social Inquiry at the University of Technology, Sydney, with an emphasis on international development.

Since returning from South America she has been involved in advocacy for several non-profit organisations including Oxfam.

"There are enormous needs in South Africa " HIV/AIDS is an area in which there is so much suffering, pain and injustice," Joanna says.

"But there is also so much opportunity to give hope to those with so little."

It is estimated that within a decade two million South African children will be abandoned or orphaned of AIDS-related diseases.

People living with the virus are often denied rights such as education, employment and health care.

"I hope in going to Africa I will not only be serving God by helping to meet people's physical needs, but also by helping them to realise their greater spiritual need of knowing God," Joanna says.

"The problem seems enormous, but there are people working towards solutions."

To receive news and prayer points email Joanna.c.gadd@gmail.com. Contributions to the work in South Africa can be made into the St George Bank Account number 003134653, BSB 112-879