WINTEX Apparel donated 100,000 masks to Konstantin Witschel from Ortenberg.
A newspaper article with a very positive after-effect: on 14 November 2020, the Offenburger Tageblatt reported in detail on the work of Ortenberg native and former Schiller graduate Konstantin Witschel on the Rebland page. The political science graduate has been working as the Syria coordinator for Deutsche Welthungerhilfe from the Turkish field office in Gaziantep since January 2020.
Last-minute decision
Caroline Wöltge also read the article about her former classmate at Schiller High School and decided at short notice to support the work and commitment of Konstantin Witschel. And Wöltke was able to help, because together with her father Thomas Winnen and brother Louis Winnen, the former Schiller pupil runs Offenburg-based Wintex Apparel GmbH. The company, which has been based in Rammersweierstraße since 1998, originally produces and sells protective clothing for authorities and institutions.
Production takes place in the company’s own factory with 600 employees in Tunisia. Since the start of the pandemic, the family-run company has decided to also produce FFP2 masks, albeit directly here at the company site. Since September last year, Wintex has therefore had its own production facility for FFP2 masks in the Ohlsbach industrial estate, which currently employs 90 people. “After consulting with my father and brother, we decided to donate 100,000 certified FFP2 masks to Welthungerhilfe,” explains the Managing Director. In December last year, Wöltke informed her former classmate about the mask donation. “I was very pleased about the generous donation, as the masks are very rare and can be used everywhere during the pandemic,” says Witschel.
To Syria and Kenya
The current Syria coordinator was previously also active in Kenya and is also familiar with the current conditions and requirements there, so Witschel decided to split the mask donation from Offenburg between the two countries: “50,000 FFP2 masks will go to Kenya and I will personally distribute 50,000 masks in Syria and the border region,” explains Konstantin Witschel.
In the meantime, the mask donations from Offenburg have arrived in containers in Kenya and at the Syrian border. Konstantin Witschel has already been able to hand over 13,000 masks to the Independent Doctors Association (IDA). “We are happy to be able to help here,” explains senior manager Thomas Winnen, whose company has already donated many smaller masks to daycare centres and schools in the region during the pandemic.