HPass Certified Learning Provider Spotlight:

On 1st December 2022, we celebrated the certification of Horizon West Africa as an HPass Learning Provider after rigorous assessment against our HPass Quality Standards for Humanitarian Learning. They kindly answered some questions for us about their work to promote safety and security for NGO and humanitarian staff in West Africa, and their experiences of the HPass certification process. 

Please tell us a bit about HWA – what kinds of training do you deliver and to whom?

Horizon West Africa (HWA) at its core is a leading security, risk management and medical services and specialist training company, based in both Nigeria and Mali. To complement our offering, we provide intelligence and reporting services, are licensed to provide manned guards within Nigeria, as well as being the exclusive distributor of TSG™ Medical equipment within both countries. 

With respect to our training services, we focus on our five core courses:

• Emergency First Aid & Automated External Defibrillator (AED)
• Defensive Driving and Driver Awareness
• Risk, Crisis and & Emergency Management
• Basic Security Guarding Course – Endorsed by the UK awarding body Qualifications Network (QNUK)
• Hostile Enviroment Awareness Training (HEAT)

Our target audience are both individuals and organisations from every sector, looking to upskill, invest in their staff or conduct professional development. For instance, during 2021 and the height of COVID, we delivered our Risk, Crisis and Emergency Management course to individual practitioners and private security companies within Nigeria, whereas the learners were not solely working within the security and/or HSE space, rather all departments of an organisation. This was delivered virtually, although is now delivered physically at our clients’ places of work. 

Our bespoke bi-lingual HEAT course is our most popular, and we delivered this to 300+ learners in 2022, within the humanitarian/charitable sectors in Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Mali. This course is structured to provide the essential tools, skills and knowledge that learners will need when operating in volatile, fragile and/or remote locations. Our course has heavy emphasis on practical application, backed up with the theory behind each lesson. Our learners are prepared that the course will be ‘live’ from the onset, and we ensure that we promote the most realistic environment to certify each learner is pressure-tested. This is not a solely classroom-based powerpoint presentation course; each learner will leave having learnt life-saving knowledge and skills which are reliable and, we hope, enjoyable in part. 

What does being an HPass Certified Learning Provider mean to you?

HPass is a huge achievement for the HWA Team, it demonstrates that we deliver exceptionally high-quality training, based on a framework of assessment standards that meet with globally identified best practice. Most importantly, our courses are learner driven, they are our main focus. From a personal level, I am immensely proud that HWA is one of only a handful of Certified Learning Providers. 

Did you learn anything through the process of becoming certified that caused you to improve your systems in any way?

Yes indeed, we absolutely learnt many things throughout the assessment process, thanks for the exceptional efforts from our quality reviewer. In the initial self-evaluation form we broke down our approach to learning delivery, which was then reviewed and discussed in detail. A good example would be that of time-constrained training, where formative testing is used to determine the progression of our learner’s achievement. Where needed, we now provide learners with extra training and opportunities to re-attempt required activities. 

What are your plans for 2023?

We will continue to provide our ongoing services to our existing client base, and to welcome new clients. 2023 will see an increase in the size of our organisation, particularly back office and operational roles which will enable us to prepare for growth. What’s most important for us is that we maintain our reputation of being a reliable and leading security, risk management and training company within West Africa.

 For more information about us, what we do, who we are and how we can make a difference to you or your organisation, please email info@horizonwestafrica.org