Sofa So good!

AOC volunteers learn the precision involved in mosaic art.

THE HAGUE, The Netherlands – “This is such a great project,” said Barbara Bond from AOC Finance. “It gets your creative juices flowing.” She was part of the first of five groups of Aramco Overseas Company B.V. (AOC) volunteers to create mosaic art on a concrete bench on April 14 at the HagaZiekenhuis. Spread out over five different days over a period of three weeks, each group of volunteers will help finish the bench artwork depicting a few of the winning entries in Saudi Aramco’s annual Children’s Art Contest.

The project is a collaboration between AOC and HagaZiekenhuis – the biggest hospital chain in The Hague – with AOC sponsoring the costs of making the bench while employees of both organizations take turns working on the outdoor piece of art.

The concrete benches, which are referred to as “social sofas,” are made to serve as small meeting places, originally in residential neighborhoods, to encourage people to go out and interact with neighbors. These days, the multi-colored sofas can be found everywhere. The social sofa project for HagaZiekenhuis aims to stimulate the patients and their visitors to get themselves out of the confines of their rooms and interact with other patients, visitors and hospital staff.

AOC has put a strong emphasis on corporate social responsibility in the past couple of years and has embarked on many different types of activities – visiting the elderly neighbors; painting a local community center; sprucing up a playground and a school garden; participating in charity runs; digging out unwanted species in the dunes. The list goes on and on and creating mosaic art adds yet another dimension to the company’s philanthropic portfolio.

“We have wanted these social sofas in the hospitals for sometime now,” said Helene Marcus from HagaZiekenhuis. “Thanks to AOC, this got the ball rolling, so after this one, we are going to do two more. The hospital’s employees are also very enthusiastic to take part in doing the mosaic.”

When it is finally finished, AOC managing director Ahmed Alzayyat will official unveil the sofa in May.