'Izzy dolls' bring smiles to Kosovo children

Tucked away on Vancouver Island Carol Isfeld is on a mission of her own for Kosovo. She's making dolls, 'Izzy dolls' she calls them, in memory of her peacekeeping son.

"There's still kids over there hurting and there's still people out there who need hugs and I need a hug so I'll make the dolls for Mark," she says.

Mark Isfeld had a dangerous job in the Canadian military, one that eventually killed him. He was responsible for disarming land mines in Bosnia. But he was also on a personal quest to ease the suffering of war weary children, by giving them his mother's dolls.

"He felt so good, he said 'I can sleep now, I don't think of the mines, I go to sleep and I think of the little smiles that I collected today'," his mother remembers.

His colleagues, now in Kosovo, remember him and the 'Izzy dolls' very well "Every time he found a little kid on the road or a couple of kids that looked down and out, he'd make a point of stopping the section no matter what the mission was and get out and get right friendly with the kids and give them a doll and try to get a picture," said Sgt. Jeff Mullenix.

So now Canadian soldiers in Kosovo are carrying the 'Izzy dolls', some made by Carol Isfeld, others made by a new group of sewing recruits in northern Alberta. They are a special bit of peacekeeping equipment, designed to trigger a smile half a world away.