Joy Does Not Divide, It Multiplies!

We live in a modern era and most of us are not only interested in how the company is doing financially, but also want to know whether it participates actively in its social responsibility. At Easy Software, we not only like to work together, but also help where help is needed. Shared joy = double joy, so why not share it?

Traditional CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities of people around Easy Software include a visit to the children's psychiatric ward at the Thomayer Hospital in Prague. We have been visiting the hospital for several years, usually twice a year - once in the winter before Christmas and once in the summer. This winter, it was no different, and a group of volunteers again set out to give away joy, gifts, and in some cases unsolicited and somewhat inappropriate advice on how to glue an angel from cotton wool.

As usual, our visit was preceded by thorough preparation. This year, we have even inserted a musical number. We have opened a gift collection in the company already in November. Surplus toys were brought by colleagues, not just parents, and so our otherwise quite modest offices began to fill slowly but surely, with toy cars, dolls and stuffed animals, coloring books as well as board games, including a few pounds of Lego.

The D-Day came, and a group of volunteers from Easy Software set off, with loaded bags full of presents, to Thomayer Hospital. Our group was welcomed on the spot by nice nurses together with children who were already looking forward to our arrival.

We prepared an afternoon program for children, several hours long, the main content of which was the production of angels from cotton wool and other artistic activities. The children, of whom there were about twenty in various age categories from 3 to 18 years of age and with various serious mental illnesses, sat down noisy but enthusiastically around the prepared tables with artistic tools and created Christmas tree decorations and everything that needs to be beautified with us. I am not sure about the level of our technique of gluing cotton wool and cutting out ornaments, but all the children got involved in the activities and were mostly forgiving of our obvious mistakes and clumsy jokes.

The icing on the cake, however, was not the gifts, but the music program that followed immediately. The braver among us dared to prepare Christmas carols for the children, which we sang to them with even greater audacity at the top of our voices. Even though we sang out of key, the children listened enthusiastically to our clumsy performance. Most of them sang with us and some even drummed into small drums and moved to the beat.

In the end, however, nothing set the Christmas mood for me more beautifully than the response from a small patient who came to hug me after our musical performance and said: "I love you". Nothing will conjure a smile on your face like an open spontaneous declaration of affection. The most beautiful things are free.

The Easy Software team features a number of enthusiastic creatives who are full of ideas, and we are already drawing on other possible activities that fall within the framework of the White Program. One of them is the production of decorations for the improvement of children's rooms in the psychiatric ward. We would like to implement the idea through a project running on a monthly basis. Members of hobby clubs even receive a monthly allowance for hobby activities from our company, so it makes the most sense to invest resources where our efforts return to us. Joy does not divide, it multiplies!