Christo A. Scheepers is passionate about empowering people with Research, Teaching, Training, and Therapy (RT³). In today’s post, we’ll briefly look at exactly who this man is.
He was born in 1977 in Humansdorp in the Eastern Cape (South Africa) and grew up on a dairy farm in Alexandria (Eastern Cape). He completed all twelve years of school at Alexandria High School after which he started working on their dairy farm while studying part-time. He originally completed an Agricultural Diploma in Animal Husbandry and Plant Production with a distinction in Animal Health. He loved the healthcare aspects of the animals but wanted to specifically work with people and he continued studying part-time in the healthcare fields of working with people and focused specifically on Christian Counselling with a major focus on trauma counselling. While working on a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in Interdisciplinary Studies and his love for research was born, he developed a consulting model to holistically work with people by combining the disciplines of business management, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), counselling, psychology, and sociology. It is during that time that he completed a Diploma in Reflexology with Aesthetic + Cosmetic under the guidance of Hans Gerspacher. He absolutely loved the modality of reflexology, even to this day.
In 2005 they sold the farm and he moved to Port Elizabeth where he bought a home industry business and changed it into a coffee shop/deli/home industry from where he also started practicing in the field of trauma counselling combined with reflexology. He completed additional training in natural healthcare and massage culminating in a Diploma in Natural Medicine (D.Nat.Med.) from the South African College of Natural Medicine the lead to formal registration as Doctor of Natural Medicine (DNM) with the World Organization of Natural Medicine Practitioners in the USA in the year 2007; that was never renewed as the registration served no specific purpose within the South African context. He eventually sold the coffee shop and entered a full-time natural healthcare practice focusing on natural healthcare consultations, massages, reflexology, and trauma counselling while also providing treatments within a Netcare hospital. The practice grew to a specific point but remained stagnant at that level for a while and it was at that stage he realised his interest in practice management and interest in higher education, but unfortunately, the Ph.D. degree he completed in 2004 was never recognised by SAQA and he had recognition of prior learning done and completed additional subjects and eventually graduated with a Bachelor of Theology (B.Th.) degree from the South African Theological Seminary (SATS) that was fully SAQA-accredited.
A decision was made to relocate to Cape Town to start a practice there while getting involved in higher education and the practice in Port Elizabeth was closed. The move to Cape Town did not go off without problems because soon he realised that nobody in Cape Town knew him and starting a practice will take time while income is needed in the meantime. Money was borrowed and a franchise pie business was bought in Somerset West while he started practicing part-time. Due to circumstances out of his control, the business had to be closed down, lots of money was lost and he learned valuable life and business lessons from this unfortunate experience.
He then started working as an IT manager and eventually as an administrative manager in the agricultural industry and enrolled for a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) degree while practicing part-time. He went through a retrenchment before entering the field of complementary healthcare again as a clinic administrator while still practicing part-time and graduating with the M.B.A. degree and then started working in higher education on a part-time basis supervising postgraduate research students and lecturing to graduate and postgraduate students over weekends. During that time, he enrolled for a Ph.D. degree that is fully SAQA accredited. The research done for the M.B.A. and Ph.D. degrees was in the field of entrepreneurship and practice management within the healthcare industry. He also completed a Diploma in Therapeutic Reflexology and was formally registered with the statutory healthcare council in order to practice the profession legally within the healthcare industry.
In 2017, he took the big step of leaving full-time employment and entered a Therapeutic Reflexology private practice on a full-time basis while still operating within the higher education arena as an adjunct faculty member with a major focus on the research supervision of postgraduate research students.
Apart from the professional aspects, Christo is married and has two teenage girls and they all love hiking in the outdoors.
In a nutshell, this is the man behind ChristoScheepers.com.
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Christo A. Scheepers
B.Th., M.B.A., D.R.T.P., Ph.D. Candidate
B.Min.(Cum Laude), M.Min.(Cum Laude), Ph.D., D.Nat.Med.
Tel. 072-800 7243
www.christoscheepers.com
info@christoscheepers.com