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UK Mom on Mission to Spread Confidence Creates First Ever Patois-Speaking Doll

© Photo : ZureeToya, the Patois speaking black doll from Zuree
Toya, the Patois speaking black doll from Zuree - Sputnik International
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Saffron Jackson, a teacher and mother from the UK was so uninspired by the selection of black dolls on the market for her daughter, that she decided to create her own.

Ms. Jackson, who is black and of Jamaican decent, was fed up with the fact that dolls on the market did not represent her culture and looked completely different from her daughter.

As a result, the UK mom decided to start her own business and develop a black doll which had curly hair and spoke patois.

Ms. Jackson said the inspiration for her doll company, Zuree (which means beautiful in Swahili), came while she was pregnant and looking for toys for her unborn baby.

Shen searched long and hard for a doll that was black and would also have similar textured hair to that of her future baby. However, she was unable to find anything that represented her culture well enough.

​"Try Googling 'black doll' and then you will see what comes up; it's not a pretty picture. The dolls look ugly and are not nice," Ms. Jackson told Sputnik.

Ms. Jackson's search took her to the US, where she hoped there would be a wider selection of dolls on the market, however that wasn't the case her search ended in vain yet again.

"I decided after my journey to the US, that I would start researching the doll market myself and launch my own business. I decided to develop a doll that represented my child and my culture," Ms. Jackson said.

Since Ms. Jackson launched her doll in January 2017, the response has been astonishing.

Many have congratulated the venture, stating that it is needed and something that will certainly help young black girls be better represented in society.

The first doll in her Zuree line is called Toya, a Jamaica Patois-speaking "cutie" with dark skin and curly hair. Toya greets you with a prideful "Wah gwan? Weh yuh seh?" when her torso is squeezed, which translates from Patois as "What's up? How are you doing?" 

"When you look at dolls currently on the market they don't represent black girls at all. Even when you look at white girls, a number of them have low self-esteem as they want to look like Barbie, but can't. Imagine how much worse it is for black girls," Ms. Jackson told Sputnik.

​Saffron Jackson makes reference to the fact that society has started to define what beauty is and that tends to be someone who has blonde hair with blue eyes.

"I have seen how societies idea of what beauty is impacts a person's confidence, look at the black community, who now wear silky wigs, they find their natural kinky hair unattractive because of what society has told them is beautiful," Ms. Jackson told Sputnik.

​In a famous 1990s video of a black child and a white child, the moderator presents two dolls to the children. One of the dolls is black and the other is white, the moderator asks the children which doll they believe is the prettiest and both children point to the white doll.

This social experiment was done to show that society defines white as more beautiful or preferable to black.

"Unless we change society's view of beauty and start to build the self-confidence of our children, then nothing will happen. When black girls start to see dolls that look like them then they will start to see how beautiful they are and that they are represented in society, to make these dolls cost a lot of money, simply because currently there is no demand for black dolls," Ms Jackson told Sputnik. 

Ms. Jackson is working on several other ventures in connection with Zuree, one of which is a children book. All of this will be done in the hope that young black girls and even older women from the black community, will start to feel represented in a society that has typically rejected their beauty.

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