IN WAR, CHILDREN suffer. They are the “collateral damage” politicians refer to when they dismiss civilian deaths in armed conflicts. Rag Dolls 2 Love Inc. was started to put a soft cloth doll in the hands of children under six in countries ravaged by war.
In the summer of 2003, as I listened to a report of the death of Israeli children in a bus bombing and Palestinian children shot during a raid by the Israeli army, my frustration and anger spilled over at the untimely termination of so many young lives.
Rag Dolls 2 Love was my response and was born the day I read a story of how a Raggedy Ann doll was a tear catcher, friend, adviser and parent for a child who was in need. I knew a soft rag doll could bring comfort to children traumatized, maimed or orphaned by constant combat.
Such cloth ambassadors can bring love to children turned all too quickly into adults by the violence of everyday life. In the Middle East, Palestinian boys and girls have been shot while eating a sandwich or crushed by falling walls as their homes were being demolished. They watch as their parents are gunned down or humiliated by Israeli soldiers, growing psychologically damaged by the continuing sounds of war; fearful as their towns are turned into rubble and a new wall rises to separates them from family members.
Israeli children have been blown up while riding a bus, eating a meal at a restaurant with their families or hit by bomb fragments in their strollers. Many have been orphaned by suicide bombings and traumatized by stories of random violence.
Volunteers around the world are now sewing dolls. One volunteer wrote, “It is one small way I can make a difference in the lives of children who lose their childhood to hostilities.”
This year the rag dolls will go to the children in Palestine and Israel. The next country would be Iraq, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe or some other region where a distribution point can be established. How wide our effort will be, though, depends on how many more people are willing to join us as peacemakers with needles.
The doll is made from a soft material decorated with a gentle face and a heart. It is designed to appeal to both little boys and little girls. It is not dressed and does not have hair. It does not display the colors of any ethnic tribe – white, black, brown, yellow, red. The doll shape and face are the same on all the dolls, in the hope that some day, if children from opposite sides of a conflict see others with dolls that looks like theirs, a small light in the wall of hatred will flicker.
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