Arkema’s commitment with the French Red Cross to train people to give first aid is a strong sign of the Group’s desire to be involved with the public, within the continuation of its ”Common Ground®” policy framework¹. With less than 10% of its population trained to give first aid, France comes nearly last among european countries. If the number of people trained could be doubled, nearly 10,000 lives could be saved every year!
The originality of the Arkema/Red Cross partnership lies in the opening of its training to people from outside the company: the people who live near the industrial sites have been invited to join Arkema’s staff to be trained. The instructors of the French Red Cross’s regional centres provide a training programme which was made to measure for Arkema and which is for small groups of about 10 people for maximum efficiency. Arkema’s industrial site managers are in charge of logistics.
The obvious objective of the partnership is to make 5,000 people become aware of this action over a period of two years. The training sessions progressively organized in 2006 at the main office and on the industrial sites of Arkema and its subsidiary companies in France have already concerned about 11,000 people – half of whom come from outside the Group. A special distinction should be given to the participating schools near several sites.

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¹ (“Common Ground®”) is an initiative meant to open Arkema’s activities and products to a wider public and to create a dialogue. (www.terrainsdentente.arkemagroup.com).