The magic

When we were children, teddy bears kept us warm at night and give us the feeling of comfort and security while protecting us from the monster under the bed.
But as we grew, in some way they are still associate with love, security and friendship and for some people can also symbolize romance and love.
So no matter how old we are, still somehow teddy bears represent happiness and safety and make us smile and cheer us up when we feel lonely or sad.

The good cause list

It's amazing how we just keep running into people we know that have a project for kids!
We have already a couple of good projects to give the hugfunds to, and these projects are not huge organizations but small personal ones so it's very clear to follow where your money goes to.
One of the organizations is called 'Foundation Access to Education'
Here you help the future for children in Buldana, India!

Another project we would like to make a difference in a child's life is in Moskou, Russia.
This is about an orphanage home there and we are even considering going there with Emi, the bear. It is called Maria's children.

The Teddy Bear Effect - how it came to pass

The movie The Teddy Bear Effect actually became a sequal of movies, something that came out of this idea of just doing something fun.
With the 'let's-not -just-talk-but-actually-do' mentality we started seriously writing a scenario, a story-board and a list with people we need and and the settings were we would shoot.
My contemporary artist and friend Nir Nadler provided for the camera, Daniel Nijdam, an upcoming singer was selected to play as a street artist, Eva Ellingsworth, also a musician got to put her new single 'Stay' as a soundtrack in the movie and another friend Estee Makampo blends in her violin music.
Everybody around us got more and more excited with this teddybear film we were about to make.
And not only our friends, how about the tourists, the people in the streets, the drivers in the trams, the police-officers, the people in the cafe's...the magic of the bear was spreading!
After a successful day of shooting we wanted to get a nice cup of choco in a cafe and as we were looking for space where the bear could ALSO sit, two Dutch men said: Wow, what a nice bear, how much?
Noemi replied: It's not for sale, but you can maybe rent it?
I said: Nah, it's not for rent either, but you can hug it! You can hug it and give charity for the hug.
The men started to laugh. But they were intrigued:'For what cause is this charity then?' they asked.
I just blurted out:'For the streetkids in Peru!'
Actually we had just seen a very nice Peruan documentary called 'El Olvido' (the forgotten) of which they presumed the maker compensated the children making money on the street with the profit of her film. At least, we would. We would love to make documentaries actually, the real thing. Anyway, something for later.
The men said: Well, let's go into the cafe and tell it to EVERYBODY!
We suprisingly followed them inside as they yelled: 'Attention everyone! Hug this bear for a good cause! Give a hug and an euro for the streetkids in Peru!!
5 minutes later we were in the street with 10 euro's in our hands.
We were so excited and went into another cafe next to it to finally have our hot drink. There and then the idea for the Hug the Bear Foundation arised.

The begining....

Avantia Damberg had a job as an office manager at a dutch company at Sloterdijk, Amsterdam. At her first day she got a huge office, that even the director didn´t have. There was in a corner of the big office a giant teddybear. When she asked what was the story about the teddy bear the co-workers said they already found the bear when the rented the building. So nobody knew... It was a mystery.

One day Avantia met Noemi Mena and they became friends. Noemi once visited Avantia and they were sitting in her room watching a movie. Suddenly Noemi looked up and saw a teddy bear sitting on top of a closet, that big it´s head was touching the ceiling. One of the reasons it suprised her even more that the day before she had a conversation about when prey animals are made small and stuffed, they become cute. Normally you would be afraid of a bear, but a teddy bear you want to hug.

Avantia then told her the day she took the teddy bear home, how everybody was smiling and laughing with her. And that made her smile too. There she went, a woman made small by this huge teddybear she was carrying. It took two passenger seat spaces in the train and metro.
This was when the idea for a film was born.