Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a Syrian refugee girl, to ‘walk’ in multiple San Diego locations

Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a Syrian refugee girl, will interact with the public at multiple San Diego locations Nov. 3-5 as the finale of Amal’s 6,000-mile, 35-city walking tour of the United States.

Although Little Amal’s walking itinerary in San Diego has not been announced, the local partnering organization that will collaborate on the local “welcoming” events were unveiled on Wednesday. They are: Blindspot Collective theater company; Casa Familiar; City of San Diego; Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman; Fundación Regalando Amor; Imagine: Brave Spaces; Jewish Family Service of San Diego; La Jolla Playhouse; San Diego Symphony; Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve; UC San Diego; UCSD-CASA Community Station; UCSD-Alacran Community Station; and UCSD Center on Global Justice.

Amal Walks Across America is the centerpiece of the nonprofit The Walk Productions, which is producing a global series of festivals and educational events to bring attention to the plight of displaced people, particularly young people, whose lives have been uprooted by war, famine and corruption in their home countries. The name Amal means “hope” in Arabic.

In 2021 and 2022, the puppet was featured in 250 “Walk with Amal” artistic events stretching 5,000 miles across 13 countries from the Syrian border to the eastern seacoast of England. Next up is a nine-week trip across the United States, with plans for 100 artistic events across the country.

The U.S. tour begins Sept. 7 in Boston and continues through the Northeast, Midwest, Southeast and Southwest before arriving in California, with stops in Joshua Tree on Oct. 29, Los Angeles from Oct. 21-Nov. 3 and finally, San Diego. The U.S. leg of the tour is important for Walk with Amal because America has long been a refuge for the displaced.

The Walk Productions announced a new program Wednesday called “Amal From Afar,” which will provide off-route opportunities for Americans to engage with Amal. To celebrate the first night of Amal’s U.S. journey on Sept. 7, anyone in the U.S. is invited to host their own version of “Tonight I Am Not Alone.” As the sun sets across the U.S., leading cultural institutions will stage their own events inviting communities of every kind to explore the power of a welcome to a newcomer. Details of how the public can participate can be found at walkwithamal.org.

The backstory of Little Amal began in 2017, when London’s Good Chance Theatre produced a play called “The Jungle,” about a notorious refugee camp in Calais, France, filled with thousands of migrants hoping to reach the U.K. One of the characters in the play was an unaccompanied migrant child named Amal whose only English word was “school.”

Two years later, Good Chance Theatre trustee David Lan decided to walk from Syria to the U.K. to draw attention to migrant rights. Lan worked with film director Stephen Daldry and Good Chance’s Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson to conceive an oversize puppet of “The Jungle” character Amal.

The Amal puppet was designed and built by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Co. She was created in the style of Mexico’s mojigangas, which are giant human-like puppets whose walking and facial movements are created by a trio of puppeteers, including one inside. Handspring is most famous for creating the stunningly lifelike horse puppet for the Broadway play “War Horse.”

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com