Girls meet textiles! On the 3rd April, we had the opportunity to motivate and encourage girls for job fields in textile industry and introduce them to BioFibreLoop. Our partner Deutsche Institute für Textil- und Faserforschung Denkendorf (DITF) organised and hosted a Girls’ Day last Thursday. This is an annual nationwide event in Germany aimed at encouraging girls to explore careers in fields where women are still underrepresented, especially in STEM.

This year’s Girls’ Day at DITF was all about lignin textiles and coating. The perfect topic for BioFibreLoop to get involved in.
Six girls visited DITF and were introduced to DITF in general and lignin fabrics and coating in particular in two sessions: a practical laboratory session and a session focused on the background of our project.

1) Cigdem Kaya and Thomas Hettich from DITF guided the girls through the laboratories, introducing them to the production of lignin textiles and coatings. The girls took part in lab activities such as producing a lignin film from lignin granulate, laminating a fabric with a lignin film and measuring the contact angle of drops on lignin coatings.
2) The second session was hosted by Laura Merker and Laura Schmaltz, our managers for communication, dissemination and exploitation from Steinbeis Europa Zentrum. They talked to the girls about the issue of textile waste and the importance of recycling. Together with the girls, they worked out interactively why conventional functional clothing is usually problematic for the environment and human health and what solutions BioFibreLoop will offer in the future.

We also wanted to present the girls a few women working in BioFibreLoop, hoping to inspire them. Cigdem Kaya, Ana Sofia Fonseca of Det Nationale Forskningscenter for Arbejdsmiljø (NFA), Carlotta D’Aleo from NTT and Victoria Caballero of IDENER happily agreed to introduce themselves to the girl, telling them a bit about their background and profession as well as their motivation by having made a video before the event apart from Cigdem who talked in person with them.

Many thanks to DITF for making it possible for us to participate with our project and a big thank you to everyone involved, especially Patrick Schibat, the main organiser. Thanks also lot to Cigdem, Sofia, Carlotta and Victoria.
Taking part was not only fun – it also gave us the chance to engage with young people on something that truly matters to us: showing that creating positive change is possible and that building a more sustainable and safer world can be part of your professional path.