WEG proved once again that investing in education is one of the main factors for becoming a socially responsible company. The Brazilian Sales and Marketing Managers Association’s (ADVB/SC) ‘Citizen Company’ award has been presented to WEG in 2008 for the WEG Training Centre CENTROWEG.

Now in its tenth year, the award aims to encourage and reward social-environmental projects of private and public companies in Santa Catarina. The award promotes public recognition of social, environmental and cultural actions of companies and how they encourage their suppliers to do the same in accordance with the Socially Responsible action. The award is evaluated in three categories: Environmental Preservation, Community Participation and Cultural Development.

Founded in 1968, CENTROWEG is a modern apprenticeship school created to educate and train teenagers for the job market. Their daily classes follow the same structure as regular school classes, but with a view to prepare the students for their professional future by developing technical skills in mechanics, tooling, electronics, electrical engineering and chemistry. Around 100 students graduate from the three year course every year and over 2200 students have completed the course so far, almost 1300 of which are now employed by WEG including Delio da Silva, the Chairman of the Board.