Calling African Sheq people to a continental website

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Calling African Sheq people to a continental website

November 2nd, 2009

Sheq professionals in Africa have several resources and institutes serving their needs for research, skills sharing, training, data, and specialised news. Most of these services are based outside Africa, or their exchange is limited by national borders.

Sheqafrica.com aims to establish communication between these resources to the mutual benefit of African Sheq practitioners and organisations.

Edmond Furter, the editor of Sheqafrica.com, invites institutes, researchers, managers, corporate practitioners, consultants, trainers, and learners, to share their resources and insights in these pages and archives, writes Sheqafrica.com founder Ben Fouche.

In the three years since we started, Sheqafrica.com had hatched from an idea into a fledgling Sheq resource for the continent. Visits to the Sheqafrica.com network of websites have steadily grown from about 200 visits to about 7500 visits per month. Almost all (98%) of visitors to the site are African, mostly based in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, and Mozambique. Sheqafrica.com had become the largest Sheq media entity on the continent.

Our editor, Edmond Furter, is a South African Sheq publishing specialist, qualified in Sheq management and auditing, and former editor of the magazines Safety Management, Occupational Risk Management, and ReSource. He had visited Sheq practitioners at work in Namibia, Zambia, and Mozambique, and corresponds with specialists around the world.

In the interview that led to his appointment in September 2009, Furter said; “Sheq professionals were making a transition from paper and telephones, to automated management systems, instant global research methods, and real-time data collection. I accept the challenge to migrate my own role in Sheq communication, from paper to electronic publishing, and from Southern Africa to include the continent.”

Furter is based in Johannesburg west, from where he attends Sheq conferences, interviews visiting presenters, visits Sheq practitioners at mining and other industrial sites, and keeps track of trends at Sheq institutes. He also edits articles from contributing authors.

What’s in a site

This website operation is based in Pretoria east. I asked the editor about his initial priorities, and he replied; “The absence of paper reveals this forum to be what every good magazine should be; an expression of the mutual interest within a profession or interest group, by contributors and readers… except that the term ‘readers’ is now replaced by ‘visitors’, since visitors answer back, or initiate a conversation.”

Most articles on the website invite direct comment from visitors, which the editor clears within a day or two to keep the ever-present spam clutter at bay. The comment option is usually large enough for busy visitors to make their immediate comments, ask their questions, or add their references to resources for the benefit of other visitors. Sheq institutes or authors could also email announcements and articles to the editor.

What’s in a blog

We agree to accept and attach visitors’ comments to most articles, and to host more sustained conversations on the blogs. It is my pet project to attract more bloggers to the site, each to cover a specialised theme, to attract their own ‘stream’ of visitors, and to log their own conversations to the benefit of adjacent specialists who would need insight into these detailed conversation logs from time to time. Enthusiastic bloggers should contact us.