You have arrived at the POLAR BEAR website and you are very welcome!
Here you can find out about the work of the Polar Bear Community in the Third Sector – its history, present and future projects.
The primary purpose of this site is to give you information about us and our partners.
Use the blue buttons on the left to search through our site.
On the right hand side of each page we will add useful links, quotes or other information.
Why Polar Bear?
The Polar Bear Community has been working in the Third Sector with its ‘Voice For the Voiceless’ principles (innovative ways to help people find and express their authentic voice) since 2001, yet we are still viewed with curiosity… what have we got to do with polar bears?
The name evolved from my 1998 mental health diagnosis as a bi-polar manic depressive … and I thought: which is more memorable, ‘the bi-polar community’ or ‘the Polar Bear Community’? So many people recall “Polar Bear” whenever they meet me, even if they have forgotten my name!
However, there is another connection… using polar bears as a metaphor as we tell our stories.
Let me explain.
Look at the image in our illustration * above - you can see a polar bear stepping off a melting ice flow, yet he is in the middle of a city, not in the Arctic, where he might expect to be .
When I was going through my mental illness, I felt like that polar bear – the world I thought I knew was melting under me, shrinking away and it was becoming a strange, unknown and scary place to be.
Imagine how a polar bear might feel if it suddenly found itself on a city street… on a London street…
Imagine how someone going through a mental health crisis might feel as the known becomes the unknown… the certain becoming uncertain, chaos!
Now imagine how people might feel about meeting this polar bear on their street, on your street…
Perhaps we can all become polar bears sometimes (MIND claims 1 in 4 will be personally affected by mental health issues in their life and this figure could be even higher in more stressful environments, like inner cities).
Later this year I intend to publish the illustrated Polar Bear Story and develop a unique creative writing course called Polar Tales, where we will support people as they express their own stories.
If you think you may already be, or know someone else who may be, a polar bear, tell us your tale… another innovative way through which Polar Bear can support people coming to terms with crisis (and possibly more friendly than going to therapy)!
Connect with us, talk with us…
The Polar Bear Community, creating connections for positive growth through personal choice!
*see also the right hand column link to our amazing graphic designer, Sue Smith.
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