‘Bear Ear Clinic’ to give free ‘hearing aids’ to Norwich teddy bears

Children in Norwich will be able to have their teddy bears fitted with ‘hearing aids’ this weekend, as part of a ‘Bear Ear Clinic’ run by Toy Like Me founder Rebecca Atkinson.

Rebecca’s campaign was founded in 2015 to improve disability representation in toys, with this latest event inspired by Raymond Antrobus and Polly Dunbar’s children’s book, Can Bears Ski?

Eastern Daily Press reports that youngsters will first hear stories about a deaf bear as part of the Norfolk Deaf Festival activity, before having their own cuddly toys fitted with the hearing technology.

Rebecca told EDP: “Visitors can expect lots of role-play fun with bear ears, white coats, toy hearing aids and cochlear implants.”

Children will also be handed a comic titled Be Deaf Aware for Your Bear, which illustrator Polly said hopes to make deaf awareness “as funny and accessible as possible for very young readers”.

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A post shared by Norfolk Deaf Festival (@norfolkdeaffestival)

“It’s all about bears, so the Goldilocks principle sprung to mind pretty quickly. When talking to your deaf bear you can be too loud, or too quiet or just right,” she added.

Rebecca said she had “a lot of people” asking about whether the toy hearing aids will be available to buy in the future, with the writer and journalist stating the company hopes to make them available for purchase “in the future”.

“For now, the children of Norwich and Norfolk are the lucky ones,” she said.

Norfolk Deaf Festival runs from Friday 8 to Saturday 9 July at The Forum, with British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation, captions and English available for the weekend’s sessions.

More information can be found on the festival’s official website and Instagram page.

Photo: Norfolk Deaf Festival.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.