This Grandfather Creates Dolls With Vitiligo To Help Children Feel Better About Their Skin Condition

If you don't know what Vitiligo is, it's a long-term skin condition that causes your pigment-producing cells to die or stop functioning, thus causing blotches of skin anywhere on your body to lose its color. This condition can of course be tough on children, especially when dealing with other kids or bullies at school. To help kids feel better about having Vitiligo, this grandfather that also has the skin condition, creates these knitted dolls that appear to have Vitiligo.

Vitiligo is said to affect around 1-3% of the world population, so it's safe to say that a lot of children have to deal with this skin issue growing up. So what better way to realize that it's not that big of a deal, than to see your toy doll also have the same skin condition that you do?

At age 64, Brazilian grandfather João Stanganelli Junior works on the crochet dolls with Vitiligo with about 90% of his time, as so he told Bored Panda during an interview. The idea first came to him when he created a doll of himself for his granddaughter as something to remember him by. Since he has Vitiligo, he made the doll with light patches all over the dolls body. That's when it dawned on him that he could help other kids with Vitiligo overcome their issues with their skin condition using the dolls.

Since making the dolls with Vitiligo, João has also started to create other types of inclusive dolls, including one that's in a wheelchair, as well as others. He creates all these dolls to help kids feel normal with their skin condition or disability.

In order to help spread the world of what he's trying to accomplish, he created a Facebook and Instagram page where he features his creations. You can reach out to him on either of his social media pages to get more information on getting a doll created for your child with the skin condition or other type of disability.