By Raquel Wildes

Parents, grandparents, friends, cousins, and loved ones are all campaigning Mattel Inc. to come out with a Bald and Beautiful Barbie in support of children with cancer. Savvy Aunties and uncles are part of this crusade.

To raise awareness, friends Rebecca Sypin and Jane Bingham launched a social media movement. They created the Facebook page “Beautiful and Bald Barbie! Let’s see if we can get it made.”

In the Facebook description, the goal of this movement is, “to see a Beautiful and Bald Barbie made to help young girls who suffer from hair loss due to cancer treatments, Alopecia or Trichotillomania . Also, for young girls who are having trouble coping with their mother's hair loss from chemo. Many children have some difficulty accepting their mother, sister, aunt, grandparent or friend going from a long haired.”

This movement was launched a few days before Christmas 2011, and since then over 100,000 people “like” it and around 5,000 people are talking about it.

One Facebook fan wrote, “My Niece Haley, who has downsyndrome (sic) and has battle the wilms tumor for over a year is now cancer free and she wasnt sure if she wanted to be a bald Tinker Bell this year for Holloween (sic).. Her Mother Lee had everything Barbie made growing up and Haley has alot (sic) too.. Mattel owes this to all of us... Come on Mattel, have a heart... Do it for Haley.....”

To date, Mattel Inc. has responded that they do not accept ideas from outside sources. This has not stopped fervent campaigners from making their voices heard.

This campaign inspired a sister campaign to get Hasbro Inc. to manufacture Bald and Brave G.I. Joe soldiers. The Facebook page in support of this movement, Bald G.I. Joe Movement, already has almost 4,000 fans and 300 people talking about it. The Bald and Brave G.I. Joe campaign shares the same goals as the Bald and Beautiful Barbie movement.

If you are dealing with cancer yourself, or if your niece or nephew is suffering with cancer or like diseases, finding different coping mechanisms can help him, her, or yourself, through some of the scariest moments of your life.

Published: January 15, 2012
Photo: Facebook