From USA-ITA OFF THE CUFF, March 2012 (Volume 3, Issue 3)
USA-ITA members know the importance of ensuring social compliance and lawful, ethical practices in the supply chain—especially as our supply chains become increasingly globalized. Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP), an Associate Member of USA-ITA, is working to ensure that future sourcing executives understand social compliance, too.
WRAP recently completed its fourth annual social compliance course at the Amsterdam Fashion Institute (AMFI) of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Stuart Webster, WRAP’s Vice President of Training and Education, taught a group of international production honors students about topics including factory certification, social compliance practices and challenges, and the role of audits and WRAP certification in the apparel and fashion industry. According to WRAP, the course opened the students’ eyes to aspects of the industry they hadn’t before seen: factory fires, child labor, and human trafficking, to name a few. Webster helped the students to understand the importance of factory audits and management systems—and made it fun, too, with role playing, mock interviews, and games.
AMFI Training, Day 1 (Photo: Cori Sue Morris, WRAP)
“The WRAP course gives them an insight in what happens in reality when you work, or do production in the Far East, and what implications it has in the fashion industry. I would say the honors program is what we call reality school, that is what we give here, students learn, but at the same time experience what it means in reality,” said Souraya Bouwmans-Sarraf, Director of AMFI. “At the end of this semester-long honors course, we deliver managers that are aware of social, ethical, sustainable responsibilities that they have when they work in the apparel industry.”
Now that the course is complete, the students will take a course in basic Chinese language and culture at Hong Kong Polytechnic before completing internships with brands and factories in China and Southeast Asia.
For complete recaps of the training course, visit WRAP's blog.