Parents Are Pressuring Lego to Make a Disability-Inclusive Christmas Set

These parents are trying to send Lego a message the company can’t ignore.

Toy Like Me is a parent-run social media campaign calling on the toy industry to produce toys with disabilities. The group, formed in April, started a Change.org petition asking Lego to create a set that featured figures in wheelchairs in a setting other than the hospital. The petition got nearly 19,000 signatures, but the organization says their request was ignored. Now, with the holidays approaching, they’re trying again.

Toy Like Me has submitted to the Lego Ideas platform, a place where people can upload and vote for new Lego design ideas, a set of holiday-themed figures in wheelchairs. The figures come with accessories like Santa beards, wands and white canes. It’s called “Christmas Wands ‘n’ Wheels.”

The organizers are urging people to visit the ideas platform and vote to make the toy set a reality. According to the Lego website, if a project receives 10,000 supporters, it automatically qualifies for a project review by a board of set designers and marketing representatives.

“For a child with an impairment it would be hugely affirming to be reflected by a brand like Lego,” Toy Like Me co-founder Rebecca Atkinson said in a press release. “It says that the brand is behind them, believes in them and that they are part of the mainstream. For children without a disability, seeing a brand like Lego celebrate human difference helps to create a more positive attitude when they meet someone with an impairment in real life.”

Toy Like Me says Lego has yet to respond to the campaign’s multiple challenges on TV, radio, email and social media.

In July, Lego released a Duplo Community People Set, a collection intended to educate young children about a variety of different people and occupations, featuring a person with a disability. The figure was an elderly man in a wheelchair, which Toy Like Me says furthers misunderstanding about disability as well as the stereotype that it’s something that only affects the elderly.

“Lego has huge cultural sway,” Atkinson said, “and the power to really change perceptions. Children look up to global brands like Lego and learn through them. But if these brands don’t include positive disability representation, then what are they teaching children? That exclusion is OK in real life?”

The organization hopes Lego will soon be the latest to join the ranks of Playmobil, Orchard Toys, Lottie and Makie dolls, who have already answered the campaign call for positive disability representation in toys. Playmobil is now working to produce a line of characters that positively represent disability, to be for released in 2016/17.

Go here to vote for “Christmas Wands ‘n’ Wheels” on Lego’s idea platform.