Article content continued

Isfeld was killed in Croatia in 1994 while removing landmines, and his mother has since died. But the legacy of the Izzy dolls lives on.

While in Kabul, Afghanistan, combat engineer Cpl. James Oakley was used to handling dangerous tasks, but a few days before Christmas, his team’s mission was to go into a local village and give out Izzy dolls to children.

“At first the children were nervous about approaching us as we came into their village, but once they saw the dolls poking out from the top of the boxes we were carrying, we were all but mobbed by excited young Afghans holding out their little hands, calling out, ‘Mister, mister!’,” Oakley wrote in a testimonial. “Before I realized it, the box was empty and there were dozens of happy little faces milling around, enjoying their new treasures.”

The dolls — made either as boys with the peacekeepers’ UN blue berets or girl dolls with braids and a floppy hat — are to be about six inches tall and kept light so they are easy for soldiers to carry in their pockets. There is a design on the website (www.izzydoll.ca/) knitters can follow, but volunteers are free to make their own version, too. Typically they are made out of scrap or donated wool and take about three hours to make.

As someone who has knitted several dolls herself, O’Connell says the process can bring on an “overwhelming” sense of emotion, knowing the gesture will cause a ripple effect.

Photo by Jean Levac / Ottawa Citizen

“It’s about the person knitting the doll because to me it speaks for Canadian women. It says we care about the children of the world, we care about the soldiers and health care workers, when they get the dolls there’s always smiles on their faces — and when you are knitting the dolls knowing that all that love is coming from Canada to the children of the world.”

Instructionsto make the dolls can be found online at www.izzydoll.ca/dolll/dolll. For more information about patterns and information on distributing the dolls, contact O’Connell at soconn37@gmail.comor (613) 267-3145.

pmccooey@ottawacitizen.com