Egypt: Italy provides environmental-social textile training

The Italian initiative Cottonforlife, which aims to make Egyptian textile production socially and environmentally sound, is moving forward. ANSAmed was told that an inaugural ceremony for training courses for industrial institute instructors in the mechano-textile sector was held near Alexandria.

A similar beginning of a course for agrarian institute trainers was started last Tuesday in the capital at the agriculture ministry. The six-day courses will be repeated in the next few years, including in Upper Egypt if required, and are part of a five-year protocol signed in February with the Egyptian technical education ministry, Filmar of Zocco d'Erbusco (Brescia) and Alexbank, an Egyptian branch of the Intesa Sanpaolo group.

The project aims to provide the Egyptian ministry with technical support to modernize training in agricultural and industrial schools in the mechano-textile sector. The protocol is parallel to a collaboration agreement signed in September between Filmar and the Egyptian agriculture ministry for the growing of organic Egyptian cotton with extra-long fibers on the basis of the principles of Filmar's social responsibility initiative Cottonforlife. The five-year program promotes the adoption of cultivation methods and industrial processing of cotton in line with human health and well-being, their rights and environmental protection. The importance that Egypt attributes to the courses was seen in the presence of Technical Education Minister Mohamed Youssef at the ceremony held on Monday in Borg Al-Arab, in the western outskirts of Alexandria. The minister underscored the importance of the initiative, since in addition to vertically integrating the cotton production chain, it links training and instruction to the industrial world, thereby providing work opportunities for the young. Filmar was represented by the CEO of its Egyptian subsidiary FNT, Vincenzo Gaspari.