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June 30, 2010
Alcoa employees build sundeck at a hospital
Gratitude for outstanding treatment at the local hospital in Neskaupstadur, East Iceland, drove an Alcoa Fjardaál employee to gather his colleagues for an Action Project to improve the hospital facilities and plant more sunshine into the lives of the patients and the staff.
Magni Hardarson, supervisor in the Alcoa Fjardaál casthouse, underwent a 4-week treatment for his obesity at the FSN hospital, which has successfully helped so many individuals, including about half a dozen Fjardaál employees, to deal with their weight problem and lead them on the right track towards better health. The treatment includes comprehensive aftercare, as the patient gets physically and psychologically adapted to a new and healthy lifestyle.
Having lost a lot of weight because of this turnabout in his life, Magni thought of ways to pay back to the hospital, a large general hospital and health care center, which serves all of East Iceland. He asked the manager and the staff what a dozen volunteers, with 3,000 dollars from the Alcoa Foundation, could do to fulfil some dream for them. As it turned out, it had for some time been a problem that on the rare sunny days that you get in the short summer in Iceland, there had been no place for the patients, or the staff, to sit outside with a cup of coffee or a light meal.
Hence, on a sunny Saturday in June, a group of twelve Alcoa Fjardaál employees and their families, close to 30 people in all, got together and built a handsome sundeck at the hospital in Neskaupstadur. The initiative was supported by the Alcoa Foundation as a part of the ACTION community program in Iceland.
Svarthamrar contractors supervised the project and the person in charge was a carpenter who also works for the hospital. In the beginning, he could not assign tasks fast enough since the cooperation was exemplary. The construction was finished within the four hours planned for the community project.
The new sundeck will improve outdoor recreational facilities for employees and patients on good-weather days. “It is a wonderful contribution from Alcoa Fjardaál and the sundeck will make many joyful moments for the patients and staff at the hospital. I want to thank everyone that worked on the project and I also want to say that remarkably able and giving people work at Fjardaál,“ says Valdimar O. Hermannsson, Operating Manager at FSN Hospital.
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