On July 12, 2022, six apprentices who are currently completing their first year of training at SGL Carbon or at Brembo SGL, a joint venture belonging to SGL, visited the vocational training area (BBB) at the Dominikus Ringeisen Werk (DRW).
In a completely different world, the future plant and machine operators and industrial mechanics were welcomed there by the apprentices who attend the BBB.
Whereas in a regular apprenticeship the training program and content are fixed, the BBB is about discovering people's skills and resources and finding out where people with disabilities can cope and what tasks they are up to through working in the workshop, internships and exchanges with companies such as SGL. In the BBB are not necessarily all those who have completed a special school. There are also adults in the BBB who want to find a way back into employment after a mental illness. For them, it is not so much the tasks themselves that pose a challenge, but their personal ability to cope with stress, for example working in a concentrated manner over a certain period of time.
During a tour of the workshop, the SGL apprentices were given an overview of the various car parts manufactured by the DRW workforce - ranging from hood openers to built-in parts for the car's ventilation system. Afterwards, the DRW apprentices showed the SGL apprentices their various work areas.
The idea of sponsoring the quite different apprentices as well as getting to know the different worlds of training started with the visit to DRW and continued a week later with a return visit by the DRW apprentices to the SGL training workshop, where they were given an insight into the day-to-day work of apprentices at an industrial company.
In the best case case - i.e. if a job opens up that a DRW apprentice can perform - an outside job could even be considered.
For Uwe Moderer, Head of Apprenticeship at the Meitingen site, the exchange with the DRW has been a very valuable experience, as the SGL trainees get a completely different view of the working world and of work that is important and often receives too little appreciation.