As new patients arrive at the Burma Children Medical Fund's B. K. Kee house and in Mae Sot Clinic they are given a ready-for-duty teddy, packed in a bag along with pictures painted by current and past patients at the B.K.Kee House, thanks to generous cash donations from CMIRC members and friends so we can purchase the teddies locally.
A teddy's role is very diverse, none more so than in the Netherlands. All police cars in the Netherlands come equipped with a teddy bear. That's in case something troubling happens to a child and the police officer has to calm the child.
The reason behind the Dutch police keeping teddy bears in their car
It is observed that in the Netherlands, the cops keep teddy bears in the car as one of their important pieces of equipment. As per their system, this teddy bear is obligatory to be provided to children experiencing difficult times due to accidents of their loved ones. These toys named ‘trauma bears’ are implemented to aid in relieving children in suffering, which for sure does wonders. Moreover, having noticed this as a trend, police systems of other countries have also started such a gesture to help serving better even in emergency conditions.
Incidents that brought attention to the need
A few years back, some officers of the Dutch police were trying to calm down two young children, who were sitting in a vehicle that been involved in an accident. Although all their family members were fine, the kids were badly scared and became quiet and relaxed when the teddy bears were offered to them by the officers. Along with the smart move of officers, this accident helped to start a new way out under such traumatic situations.
Another incident, in a different region was when a child was present at the site of the mishap. The officer present at that time grabbed a teddy toy from the car and rushed to the boy sitting there to make him feel relaxed while other officers carried out the rescue operation. Everyone was shocked when the crying baby started talking to the teddy and became calm quickly.
The history behind this action
The thought of keeping the toy teddy bears to comfort kids in official vehicles was started back in 1969 for both police and firefighters. James Theodore Ownby, a radio pioneer along with Colonel Robert Henderson and Colonel Robert Henderson put forward this idea together to help out the safety system to get the situation under control, in case the children were involved in any casualties.
To spread happiness, love, and care, an organization named “Good Bears Of The World” was also initiated by them all together where the children and the elder persons can get comfort by playing with the stuffed teddy toy. It was the first association that provide teddies to police departments free of cost during the 1980s. Moreover, this union distributed several thousand teddies to the needy ones
To be continued in next month’s Bulletin....