S.H.E MASTERS PREP BATSWANA FOR GLOBAL STAGE
While the coronavirus COVID-19 came with closures of a number of businesses and redundancies, it also unearthed the entrepreneurial spark in many Batswana. Local occupational health and safety specialist, Masego Zulu-Lekgowe was one of those who grabbed the opportunity and started a training institute in her area of speciality.
Her school, S.H.E Masters offers Health and Safety programmes that are accredited by OTHM United Kingdom. They include health and safety consultancy services for corporate clients, schools, government entities as well as individuals career guidance, tutorial service and international network opportunities in all areas of Safety, Health and Wellbeing, Environment and Quality.
A Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety takes two years, with six months virtual.
The training institute also provides ‘Toolbox Talk with S.H.E Masters’ programme where OHS issues across all industries are discussed every Tuesday. The programme invites prominent people and companies to discuss any underlying SHEQ issues in a bid to keep up abreast with up to date information within the industry.
Zulu-Lekgowe, who is a former primary school teacher, told BusinessMonitor that living in the Diaspora empowered her to adopt international competitive programmes for Botswana market and beyond. She said the programmes are meant to groom, nurture and prepare candidates for the international market of health and safety.
“S.H.E Masters was inspired by the passion for continual career empowerment, competence, and confidence in safety with no limitation by age or educational background. We exist to give a second chance to the community to become experts in integrating health and safety knowledge, skills,” she explained the birth of her business.
Zulu-Lekgowe said upon completion of the training, graduates are eligible to apply for GRADIOSH membership and progress with other university qualifications within Europe and across the world.
To beat her competitors, S.H.E Masters qualifications can be used to progress to universities within Europe and globally giving candidate the chance to explore international market with eligibility for IOSH membership.
She said COVID-19 affected them as the school was still at its inception stage. However, Zulu-Lekgowe the training institute is slowly getting the recognition it deserves as well as aligning its services with the current challenge adding that it also delayed the flexibility to provide services physically to their clients in Botswana. ‘On a positive note, we have seen people now adopting to online training which suits our preferred training style’.
“Currently the response is still slow from the market as Health and Safety has never been a topic to be discussed nor considered for everyone. Most of us take safety for granted and we believe that construction companies and mines should be the ones concerned with safety.
With this pandemic we are in the process of transforming peoples mindset and perspective to recognize the importance and need of safety practices within all industries and learning that safety is a must practice every second, by everyone, everywhere and anytime.”
Currently, she employs five people and has plans to increase once S.H.E Masters gets accredited by Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA).