desymbol: British Mom Of A Deaf 4-Year-Old Aims To Normalize Having Medical Conditions By Launching A Line Of Inclusive Dolls

It’s very natural to want to play with toys that remind us of ourselves. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many dolls available for differently-abled children who have medical conditions and look different than others. 39-year-old British mother of two, Clare Tawell, decided to solve the issue and created the nonprofit organization Bright Ears UK which she uses to modify baby dolls to match children with medical conditions.

Clare’s biggest inspiration was her 4-year-old daughter Matilda who is deaf. “I became really disheartened when I couldn’t find a doll or any toy with hearing aids. It felt to me that society didn’t deem her important and therefore she shouldn’t be ‘acknowledged,’” she told Today.

The medical radiation technologist works on the dolls during her spare time and her goal is for every child with disabilities to play with toys that are just like them. She hopes to empower children and promote inclusiveness with her handmade dolls and accessories.

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Clare Tawell founded Bright Ears UK and now modifies dolls to make them look like children with various medical conditions

Image credits: Bright Ears UK

Clare has sold over 2k dolls since starting her toy-altering mission in 2017. She hopes that, in the future, children with medical conditions will be able to go into any shop and see dolls with cleft lips or hearing aids next to regular dolls. That way, kids will feel normal and won’t feel different from others.

The founder of Bright Ears UK has had her hands full of new orders recently and some of her products are temporarily sold out. So if you’ve spotted something that you desperately want, you’ll need to have a bit of patience. Clare also does custom requests whenever she has the time.

According to Clare, we live in a world that puts a lot of emphasis on ‘being normal’ and anyone that looks different from the norm might feel ‘abnormal.’ That can affect kids’ confidence in themselves and their self-esteem and create further problems down the line.

It’s not just individuals who buy Clare’s dolls. Schools and nurseries have also purchased them and use them when they talk about inclusiveness and learning not to judge people by how they look.