Day 28 ❦ A simple gift can influence world peace

Day 28

The Gift: Three Deecha Dolls

Deecha Doll (Dee-cha)
A child's imagination takes shape...
...outside the lines.

Deecha Dolls were first introduced to me in the fall of 2002. Created by a woman in Wisconsin, they are soft cuddly creatures that resemble children’s depictions and drawings of themselves and their favorite animals. My Rotary Group Study Exchange team used them to make connections between Minnesota/Wisconsin and Ghana school children. Just before we left in the spring of 2003, several of us took the Deecha Dolls into third, fourth and fifth grade classrooms around the state and asked school children to tell the Deecha Dolls stories of their lives and to write those stories for the Deechas to pass along to children in Ghana. I have some spectacular pictures of third graders holding the Deechas in their laps while they read the stories of their lives to the stuffed creatures.

We took the hundreds of stories with the Deechas to Ghana and shared the stories and Deechas. The Ghanian school children then wrote their own stories for us to bring back and share with the students here. All of the stories are moving and this exercise really opened my eyes to the ease of solving world tensions. I have several Deecha Dolls left from the experience that I use when I do public speaking engagements about my experience.

This afternoon, my daughter Shannon invited Julia (the girl from yesterday’s story) to come over and play. After a while there were several little girls running all over the yard, laughing, screaming, running and playing. Watching Julia and the other kids was very emotional. I decided that I wanted them to remember this closeness and bonding and when they came back inside - I gave all of the girls playing in my yard a Deecha and asked them to share the story of this day with the Deecha as a witness to happiness and an oracle for peace.

❦ A simple gift can influence world peace