Ballito Neighbourhood Watch goes hi-tech with new reporter app

Ballito Neighbourhood Watch (BNW) goes hi-tech this week with the launch of its new BNW Reporter App for mobile phones.

BNW is to be a guinea pig for this application, designed by a local IT company for neighbourhood watch and community policing forums for effective incident communication and response.

BNW vice chairman Morne Steffens said this week that the watch had started their ICE (In Case of Emergency) reporting group using the WhatsApp platform in 2015 and a separate chat group where BNW members could report street and residential matters and those that needed the attention of various parties, for example KwaDukuza municipality or roads repair departments.

“BNW has built up strong and effective relationships with a network of local security companies that are involved in the community. These providers agreed to be added on BNW membership communication and ICE Groups and in some instances, they also joined onto the resident street groups,” he said.

The app had been developed to replace these groups.

“It does not replace people’s current security arrangement, in case of an emergency, their security company will still be notified first, but if no response within a specified period, there are second tier or security responders that will be notified,” Steffens said.

The app is available in Google Playstore and the Apple iStore as ‘Ballito Neighbourhood Watch Reporter’ as of Wednesday this week.

A video tutorial will be available online to guide new users, or a committee member will be available to guide the ‘technology shy’ members.

It will be a free trial until the end of August 2020, thereafter you will have to join BNW at R250 a year per household.

Visit their website ballitonw.org.za or Facebook page for more information.