Generally, all of us have observed our police workers working day and night for our safety. Having their important equipment in the car, you can find them standing at every busy point of your city. But have you ever wondered if finding a teddy bear in the police car along with their safety materials like a gun, wooden stick, and handcuffs?
If you haven’t heard this fact yet, you may find it interesting to read about the Dutch police keeping teddy bears in their cars.
Is it true?
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 wonder. 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 drove it to trend.
A few years back, some officers of the Dutch police were trying to calm down two young children, that were sitting in a vehicle that got an accident. Even if all their family members were fine, the kids were badly scared and went quiet and normal when the teddy bear by officers was offered to them. Along with the smart move of officers, this accident help to witness a new way out under such shaken situations.
Another incident was spectated in a different region 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 down 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 all of a sudden and got to a normal state in no time.
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 that 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 teddy’s to the needy ones.
Charity to this action.
In Estonia, a group of students called stunned observed that more than a thousand children are involved in accidents in different places leaving them mentally injured. Hence, an emotion of love and care is needed to heal them. Subsequently, an organization is known as “Traumamommik (trauma teddy) charity” was established and performed the following functions:
- Puts teddies in each police car of Estonia.
- Celebrating children’s rights day by distributing teddy bears as a note of their love and afeection for the needy in all soviet states.
- Manufacturing and packaging of teddies as per the need, even on demand by any other public departments.
This union was readily welcomed by all officers of various safety departments. Further, this organization has even set up a platform for the ones who require help by raising a fund by their means.
