Multicultural toy manufacturer, One Dear World, recently launched their new crowdfunding campaign called Dolls For All. Partnering with Work for Good, the campaign hopes to add six new dolls to the existing collection with a focus on raising awareness of disabilities of physical and mental health conditions.
Dolls For All aims to start conversations around disabilities and inclusivity
Since launching in 2017, One Dear World's current collection has five dolls with their own unique background and multicultural identity.
Starting on 23rd September, Dolls For All has a fundraising goal of £25,000 (S$42,600). If the goal is met, a new collection of six dolls will be launched, each with a different disability.
Ten per cent of all sales will go to various disability charities. Each doll is made in support of a different charity.
The new collection of dolls includes:
- Emily, a young girl with a prosthetic limb (My AFK)
- Will, an autistic boy (Autistica)
- Daniel, a boy with Down Syndrome (Downright Excellent)
- Saroj, a doll with hearing impairment (National Deaf Children's Society)
- Fei, a doll with visual impairment dolls with visual and hearing impairment (Sightsavers)
- Claire, a girl experiencing anxiety (Young Minds)
The toys will have an accompanying booklet with a complete background of who they are. Details include the doll's name, where they were born, their condition, and where to find more information on the featured disability.
Helping children become more self-assured through diverse toys
One Dear World's founder, Winnie Mak, hopes these toys can be used by parents or caregivers to help introduce diversity from an earlier age.
The brand was created when Winnie found the ethnic diversity of rag dolls was limited, as she couldn't find an African doll for her son, Alex, to play with.
She took matters into own hands and launched One Dear World in 2017 to fill the gap in this market.
“It’s always been my long term vision to create dolls to include all kinds of diversity. But I decided to start with cultural diversity, as I was just one person with an idea, sat at my dining room table with limited funds and resources.”
Image source: One Dear World
Now, the multicultural toy brand has won several awards and was featured on the BBC for creating dolls that children from diverse backgrounds can say "look like me".
“We believe all children should have dolls that represent them, as well as dolls that look different from them so that they can grow up with a vision of being friends with anyone, regardless of race, gender or disability.”
Winnie revealed that additional funds raised beyond the fundraising target for Dolls For All will go towards creating a theme song and expanding the background stories for all the dolls.
The six dolls can be pre-purchased from 23, September to 23, October via One Dear World's website and retail between £24 (S$41) to £30 (S$51).