What do you do if you are a young disabled girl and can’t find any toys to play with who look like you? Petition a major toy manufacturer to make one of course! That’s what 10 year old Melissa Shang from Pennsylvania did anyway.
Melissa suffers with form of muscular dystrophy that causes muscle weakness and numbness. She uses a wheelchair or a walker to get around.
She has been a fan of American Girl dolls since she was 7, and especially loves their ‘Girl of the Year’ editions. Melissa decided there was something wrong with the fact that none of the dolls were disabled, and wanted to change that. These are the dolls which the website states “give voice to a diverse range of personalities and backgrounds” but they are yet to showcase a doll representative of disabled children.
Together with the help of her 17 year old sister Ying Ying, the determined fifth-grader started a petition on Change.org asking the brand to release a disabled doll as its 2015 Girl of the Year.
“For once, I don’t want to be invisible or a side character that the main American Girl has to help: I want other girls to know what it’s like to be me, through a disabled American Girl’s story,” Melissa wrote on her petition.
“Disabled girls might be different from normal kids on the outside. They might sit in a wheelchair like I do, or have some other difficulty that other kids don’t have. However, we are the same as other girls on the inside, with the same thoughts and feelings. American Girls are supposed to represent all the girls that make up American history, past and present. That includes disabled girls.”
What an awesome young girl Melissa is, not just because she has the courage and determination to try and petition a huge company, but because she has the perspective and maturity to see how important it is that toys give young girls a realistic perception of the world right from the start, so that diversity is something they are accustomed to from an early age.
What a brave little girl. I hope they take on her challenge!