About Us
Who We Are
Dolls for Darfur is a project of Temple
Emanu-El of Dallas, the Religious
Action Center of Reform Judaism and the Union
for Reform Judaism’s Commission on Social Action. The
project is completely volunteer-run, with no paid staff.
Background
Two movies, Hotel Rwanda and Paper Clips, inspired Dolls for Darfur.
Hotel Rwanda tells the story Paul Rusesabagina,
an ordinary man who risked his life to save over a thousand Tutsis and Hutus during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The movie vividly depicts the senseless slaughter in which almost one million people were massacred while the world silently watched.
The film underscores the utter indifference of the world’s most powerful nations which refused to intervene on behalf of the powerless Rwandan people.
Had the world chosen to act, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved. Dolls for Darfur aims to make the world, especially the United States,
take immediate action in Sudan so that in ten years there is no need for another movie about how countless lives were lost because the world refused to care.
The idea of the “dolls” in Dolls for Darfur comes from Paper Clips. In this documentary, students from Whitwell Middle School in rural Tennessee struggle to
grasp the magnitude of the Holocaust. To help them understand the extent of this crime against humanity, the students decide to collect six million paper
clips, one paper clip for each Jewish victim. Seeing, touching, holding these millions of paper clips transforms the Holocaust deaths from an abstract number
to something tangible, thus enabling the students to better comprehend the magnitude of the Holocaust. The Darfur Dolls, too, attempt to make the numbers
in Darfur more concrete and comprehensible. The dolls remind us that the numbers of people who are dying each day (500), who have died thus far (400,000),
and who have been made homeless refugees (2,000,000) are not simply numbers, but people, each of whom has a name and a story. Each doll represents a
human being who needs our help.
Where the money goes
The focus of Dolls for Darfur is raising awareness, not money. We want to make the materials as accessible and affordable as possible.
The suggested donation prices cover a little more than the costs of the materials and shipping. The project is completely volunteer-run,
with no paid staff.
Net proceeds are being donated to two non-profit organizations, one dedicated to advocacy efforts within the United States, and the
other to providing direct, on-the-ground relief to the refugees.
- The Save Darfur Coalition is an alliance of over 100 faith-based,
humanitarian and human rights organizations whose mission is to
raise public awareness and to mobilize an effective unified
response to the atrocities being committed in the Darfur region.
Click here to view a list of coalition members.
- The International Rescue Committee serves refugees and
communities victimized by oppression or violent conflict
worldwide. Founded in 1933, the IRC is committed to freedom,
human dignity, and self-reliance. The IRC has been one of
the largest providers of humanitarian aid in Sudan for more
than 20 years. The organization is providing emergency
assistance to the hundreds of thousands of uprooted people
fleeing the violence in Darfur.
About the Dolls
The dolls, known as worry dolls, come from villages in the mountains of Guatemala.
The dolls are handmade by families in their homes and serve as an important source of income for the villagers.
According to Guatemalan legend, worry dolls have the ability to remove worries from sleeping children.
Before going to bed, children share a concern with each doll and then place the dolls under their pillow.
In the morning, the dolls have taken the children’s worries away. We hope these dolls will bring an end
to the worry and suffering in Darfur.
Contact Information
Contact Temple Emanu-El at darfuradmin@tedallas.org or at 214.706.0000.
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