BEARS ON ICE (Iceland) and Bears of Finland share this year´s Thor´s Hammer Awards, given by Tupilak for outstanding male contributions. According to Bill Schiller, chairman of Tupilak, “the organization was impressed with the initiative of the Icelandic Bears-on-Ice donation to HIV work on this Nordic island -- as a way of contributing to the LGBT+ community service beyond Bear borders”.
BEARS ON ICE is a not-for-profit event, organized by volunteers to spice up the local gay scene and introduce gay-friendly Iceland to foreign visitors. “This is a word of mouth event that has been growing since we first started in 2005” says Frosti Jonsson, one of the organizers. “Supporting the local LGBT+ community has been our mission from day one and last year´s success made it possible for us to collect and donate ISK 400.000 ($3200) to the National HIV Organization of Iceland, HIV-Ísland, and do our best to support the great work of HIV-Iceland".
Tupilak, Nordic rainbow cultural workers, started in 1989 with the mission of bringing lesbians, gays, trans, bi and queer cultural workers from different professions together. Tupilak arranges seminars, discussion panels, performances involving cultural workers in the Nordic area and visitors from abroad and is one of the co-coordinators of the International Lesbian & Gay Cultural Network (ILGCN).
Picture: HIV Iceland board of directors with members from BEARS ON ICE.
Further Reading:
https://www.facebook.com/bearsonice/posts/967913123295825
http://www.tupilak.org/p/om-tupilak.html
http://gayice.is/news/latest/674-the-bears-give-back-to-the-community
