‘I decided to open a toy store that would include everybody’

A Yellowknife woman who sells inclusive dolls is hoping to expand her business.

Andile Pfupa is an early childhood educator and the founder of Bee You Kids, which offers dolls of different ethnicities and abilities.

She sells dolls with Down syndrome, albinism or vitiligo, as well as dolls that use wheelchairs or hearing aids.

“We were having a hard time finding dolls for my niece, like a Black baby doll. When I finally found one, it was on sale and it was at the bottom of the shelf,” Pfupa said.

“Then I looked again and I saw that there were no other dolls of colour like Asian, Indian, Indigenous, nothing. So I decided to open up a toy store that would include everybody in Canada.”

Now, Pfupa hopes to introduce the anatomically correct dolls into the medical field.

She said she was inspired by a company in the United States that sells dolls with feeding tubes.

“It helps children understand what’s going on with their bodies when they’re in hospital. It takes away the anxiety,” she explained.

Pfupa said the toys can also be used to teach children about their bodies and where it is inappropriate for other people to touch them.

Pfupa aims to eventually open a physical store and wants to increase her inventory.

In the meantime, she said more funding is needed to expand the use of these kinds of dolls in places such as hospitals and schools.

“I do believe that these products are very important, especially in facilities like for immigration where there are people of different ethnicities,” she said.

Pfupa said the dolls can be expensive as most factories produce dolls based on Eurocentric features. She noted, for example, that most dolls on the market don’t have textured African hair.

Pfupa entered this year’s Black Pitch Contest, a program by the Black Entrepreneurs and Businesses of Canada Society that offers a prize of $25,000.