The international educational program Italy-Mexico
Green Valley has developed an international educational program aimed at the university students who come from several different rural ares of developing countries. The project promotes educational training, professional, cultural and pedagogical exchange and aiming at young people who want to deepen their educational path; the internship is preparatory to finding jobs in the cultivation and industrial processing of hemp’s field.
The program is structured in such a way that theory and practice are consequential, to have a direct and 360° knowledge of the entire production chain. More particularly, the program will focus on the immediate experience, the students will be asked to engage directly in the use of techniques, innovative technologies for the cultivation, processing and industrial processing of hemp, as well as aspects relating to quality and compliance with standards in the European market.
With this program, Green Valley wishes to share its know-how and experience gained over the years, through-out collaborations with educational institutions and partners that come from more developed countries. The reasons are essentially two: 1) The company policy that firmly believes in the social value of work. 2) To highlight the potential contribution of cannabis to the socio-economic growth of these countries.
Green Valley started this new experience in the autumn of 2019, starting a collaboration with the Instituto Tecnologico de Pabellon de Arteaga (ITPA) and the support of Sintab (www.sintab.it).
The ITPA belongs to TEC (Instituto Tecnologico Nacional de Mexico), a public university attended by about 600 thousand graduates and doctoral students coming from all over Mexico and it is renowned for being a great resource in terms of “intellectual capital”. A true point of reference for the whole country, where the new Mexican ruling class is growing.
The academic program started with the participation of the ITPA (Pabellón Technological Institute of Arteaga) and the municipal hall of the Aguascalientes state, Mexico. The competition involved 1500 students of 7 different fields such as mechatronics, business, industrial and logistics management; and their 120 professors.
This initiative is the Pabellón Technological Institute of Arteaga’s first step into a three-month international program, with the selection of 13 students of which 3 made the final cut, thanks to their curriculum and experience.
It is important to point out the ITPA’s intention to maintain this program in the coming years as the students learning plant growth with LED technology at the LIA, the Artificial Lighting Laboratory directed by Dr. Ernesto Olvera, will be able to bring their acquired knowledge back to Mexico. Their LIA training is indeed aimed at the study of cannabis in the future, as soon as the legislation allows it”.
The territory of Aguascalientes is for the 80% a rich and flat territory that has favored the development of agricultural and livestock farms and, how the inhabitants of this nice town like to repeat “a land always fertile”.
Indeed, Aguascalientes enjoys a thriving economy due to both the fertility of the surrounding land and its strategic location, which allows it direct access to markets throughout Mexico.
This project has brought three students enrolled in the TEC in Castelvecchio Subequo, in the province of L’Aquila, who spent three months of training to learn and be affiliated with the techniques of processing and cultivating hemp. The program started in September and a small welcome party welcomed the arrival of Nayeli, Jorge and Jovani , from that moment they entered the Green Valley “family”.
The following days have gone by completing the bureaucratic formalities and gaining confidence with the people and the language and then they started their educational experience. Theory and practice have been addressed by the boys with determination and passion. The design experience has also led the students to visit different places such as industrial processing centers, the extraction laboratory and the genetic development laboratory.
The didactic experience was also a cultural exchange with a pleasant flavor, in fact the children had the opportunity to visit some of the most important Italian cities such as Rome, Naples and Bologna, as well as several towns and villages in Abruzzo, discovering up closer culture, Italian history and traditions. At the end of the path, Nayeli, Jorge and Jovani have had the opportunity to formulate a proposal to improve the Green Valley production’s process, based on the experience just passed and which was discussed in a formal manner at the end of this journey.
The boys lived their own experience by sharing an accommodation, the moments of pause and meals were shared with the Green Valley workers, to encourage moments of social interaction and an opportunity for a cultural and linguistic exchange.
In addition to guaranteeing subsistence throughout the period, the company also provided a scholarship of € 600 per month for each guy.