The Royal Navy & Royal Marines Children’s Fund (RN&RMCF), the only charity dedicated to supporting children whose parents work for the Naval Services, is looking for knitters to volunteer their time and their spare wool to create small dolls for the charity.

As part of a sensitive new 2013 initiative called ‘Knit the Family’ the charity is focusing on the importance of knitting families back together when one of the parents returns from active military service. Central to the initiative will be a support handbook aimed at providing practical help and guidance for the family in helping to overcome the effects of PTSD and OSR (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Operational Stress Reaction).

The charity is planning to distribute the book with the little knitted dolls that depict a generic parent and child holding hands to symbolise the importance of ‘knitting’ families back together…. But to do this they need volunteers to knit the small dolls.

There are three doll patterns available:

• Little Girl Doll
• Royal Navy Doll
• Royal Marine Doll

Although the adult patterns are for male dolls and the child doll is for a little girl, they have stated they are happy to have female adult dolls and male child dolls so long as the the uniforms remain the same as the patterns and in keeping with the Royal Navy and Royal Marines they are happy to receive any set of dolls. Donations must be for a set of one parent and one child. They are also happy to receive dolls with any human skin tone colour.

The address to send the dolls to is on the website.

Website