BAHA'I WEBSITE NOMINATED FOR LEADING WEBSITE DESIGN AWARDS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Johannesburg - South Africa's leading website awards "The Business Day Website Awards" has nominated the recently re-launched Baha'i website.

The Baha'i website was the only religious website nominated from all beliefs represented in the country.

Although none of the three prizes valued at R110 000 (about US$15 000) were given to the Baha'i website, it exposed the Baha'i Faith to about 200 website representatives primarily of the business world who were attending the function.

The Business Day is a South African daily quality newspaper with a readership of 146 000.

Furutan Celebi, the webmaster of the Baha'i website, commented: "Its intended purpose of simplicity, straight-forwardness, and pleasingness to the eye seem to have worked, and I am immensly happy that the Faith has been exposed to business circles with distinguished companies."

The statistics of actual visits to the Baha'i website since its re- launch on 22 June 2000 speaks for itself: 1298 visits in June, 3744 in July, 2089 in August, 3023 in September, 4809 in October and 6010 in November. This equals an average of 200 visits per day in the month of November (Source: Baha'i Communications International - the website host of the South African Baha'i website).

The webmaster having been asked about the future of the website says: "Obviously I am not expecting the number of visits to increase or even maintain November's very high level, but my dream would be for the website to become the 'silent promoter of the Baha'i Faith in South Africa' like the beautiful lotus-shaped Baha'i House of Worship is for India, even if in the foreseeable future sound and voice elements might be added to the website!"

For more information about the Baha'i Faith in South Africa, visit http://www.za.bahai.org or email info@bahai.org.za

For more information about the South African Baha'i website and other Baha’i internet services, visit http://www.celebi.net or email webmaster@bahai.org.za