​Thursday December 19, 2019, SOTEL, the company managing the ArcelorMittal electrical network, donated its old 4x4 to the National Center for Continuing Professional Training (CNFPC) in order to allow students of mechanical training in the automobile to practice in real conditions.​

2nd life for the car

After 15 years and a half of service being used for maintenance work on the SOTEL power lines, especially in the most difficult locations ​to access, this 4x4 had now arrived at the end of his life. A month ago, a new vehicle was bought but Claude Burton, director of SOTEL, wanted to give the old one a second chance without going to scrap or selling it.
 
Knowing the historical links between ArcelorMittal and the CNFPC, Claude Burton and his team then wondered if a car, although obsolete, would be useful for the car mechanic exercises practiced in the center.​

From the left to the right: Guy Olinger, CNFPC director, Jos Schwind, mecanical teacher, and Claude Burton, SOTEL director.

A beautiful Christmas gift for the CNFPC

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It was with great joy that Jos Schwind, a teacher of automobile mechanics at the CNFPC, welcomed the news. Indeed, the center seeks to put the students in conditions to work in a car garage, which is why making them work on vehicles which are fairly damaged and which have experienced problems relating to their daily use is an opportunity for them.

 « An all-terrain vehicle is different from a city car, their components are completely different. My students will be able to know its particularities thanks to practice, which is much more interesting than when we learn it in books.»​ Jos Schwind, mechanical teacher at CNFPC.

 

The duration of use of a vehicle for educational purposes can be up to 10 years if everything goes well, even if the establishment is not protected from a bad repair which would force them to put the vehicle to scrap.
 
The students present at the workshop are mainly young people looking for work sent by ADEM. During a year of training, the center is their boss and the donations of vehicles allow them to work and learn accordingly. Unfortunately the budget is not always high enough to regularly buy vehicles for the practice.

  

"We hope that this gift from SOTEL motivates many Luxembourg companies to think of us when their vehicles are ready for scrap and it is not always profitable to resell them. We depend on these donations to bring our students closer to reality. » explained Jos Schwind​