Little Amal, the giant 10-year-old Syrian refugee puppet, is coming to Philadelphia on Wednesday

She’s a 10-year-old refugee girl from Syria. Since 2021, she has walked more than 6,000 miles in 15 different countries. And she’s a giant, 12-foot-tall puppet.

Little Amal has become a global symbol of the plight of refugees and their human rights since she was first created two years ago. And this week, she’ll be walking through Philadelphia, and welcomed to the City of Brotherly Love by numerous local organizations.

» READ MORE: See Little Amal make her way through Philadelphia

The idea for Little Amal came on the heels of an internationally reclaimed play The Jungle, which told the story of the thousands of refugees sheltering at a camp in Calais, France. The powerful production took off globally, but the producers thought that there was still more to be done.

“Many of us spent some time with just a few of the millions of people who had made these very long journeys … And they had done so because they had no option,” said David Lan, a producer on Little Amal’s team. “As theater people, we were thinking, how do people respond to that kind of experience? We came up with creating one of those journeys.”

And so Little Amal was born, derived from a minor but powerful character in The Jungle. In the process of creating her, the producers and artistic directors had three ideas: the puppet should make a journey, she should be cared for by artists in the towns she passes through — “She’s going to be hungry, she’s going to be tired,” Lan explained — and she should be welcomed by those towns’ political leaders.

Since she started her trek in Syria two years ago, Little Amal has been received by New York City, Paris, Lviv, London, and more. And over the next nine weeks, she’ll make her first U.S. journey through 40 cities, with a stop in Philly Wednesday.

“We’re coming to the U.S. because the U.S. is a country that’s been created by forced immigration and displacement — these are the ingredients of U.S. history,” said Amir Nizar Zuabi, Little Amal’s artistic director. “What I really hope is people come and meet her on the street, open-minded and without fear — like I hope they’ll meet other people without fear.”

Refugee children are not very visible, making them easy to ignore, the creators behind Little Amal say.

But not Little Amal. She’s giant, towering over the thousands of people who walk with her in every city she visits. They’re forced to see her.Moreover, they’re forced to witness her humanity.

Operated by four puppeteers, Little Amal’s realness takes the viewer’s breath away. She’s large, but she navigates throngs of crowds with the nimble agility of a 10-year-old. You can read her thoughts through her facial expressions and eyes. And you can see her chest moving as she breathes.

As much as her team emphasizes that Little Amal is puppet, they speak of her as though she’s a human. They describe her personality and story: she’s a source of joy, she’s powerful, resilient, brave, she’s frightened, she’s thirsty for life, she wants to play, she loves ice cream. She pairs her vulnerability with a fierce presence, the tension between the two creating an emotional experience for people who see her.

“Little Amal felt like such a beautiful act of art that was really effective.”

“We chose puppetry because a puppet is just an inanimate object until the audience breathes life into her,” Zuabi said. “You need to believe that she is like you, and the only way to do that is to start thinking, ‘What is she going through?’ and tell yourself a story — which is a huge act of empathy.”

If you can empathize with a puppet, Zuabi said, can you then extend that empathy to other humans, despite your differences?

The effect Little Amal has had on people has been striking to her team. Time and again, people have vivid emotional reactions. Some walk up to Amal and say, “That’s me.” They see their experiences in Amal’s story. Lan remembers one police officer reaching out to hold Amal’s hands, then starting to cry — he learned that she was an Iraqi refugee herself.

“The way I like to see it is, we take a representative of marginalized people and we put them in the center of the village, town or city, and we celebrate it,” Lan said.

On a cold, January morning, an email from Little Amal’s team hit Taibi Magar’s inbox: Amal was coming to the U.S., and her American producers wanted to know whether Magar and her team at Philadelphia Theatre Company would be interested in hosting a welcome event for her.

“I think I just responded with exclamation points,” Magar recalled.

Magar, co-artistic director of Philadelphia Theatre Company, had been following Amal’s journey (and Zuabi’s work) since her very first walk across Syria. Hosting Little Amal fell perfectly in line with the work that she and her other co-artistic director (and husband), Tyler Dobrowsky, aim to create: the intersection of art and social justice.

“I’m using her in a way to talk about the issues that are facing Philadelphia specifically.”

“Little Amal felt like such a beautiful act of art that was really effective,” Magar said. “I was just enamored, because I think the best thing that theater does is it enacts your imagine … Imagination is the key to social justice, because if you can’t imagine it, you can’t fight for it.”

Being around Little Amal, Magar said, undeniably opens your heart.

When Magar and Dobrowsky started preparing for Little Amal’s visit, they wanted to create an event that would tie her to Philly — and they decided to draw the connection to Philly’s housing crisis.

“We decided on, ‘Where will Little Amal sleep tonight?’” Dobrowsky said. “There’s so many things she’s come to symbolize, so I’m using her in a way to talk about the issues that are facing Philadelphia specifically.”

By linking an international refugee crisis to a domestic housing crisis, Dobrowsky said, they hope to foster a sense of connection and relatability to the refugee experience. They partnered with Broad Street Ministry, SpiralQ and other local organizations to build a bed and stitch a quilt for Little Amal to sleep in at the end of her journey down Broad Street.

In addition to Philadelphia Theatre Company, Little Amal will be welcomed by over 30 local groups, including Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture, Taller Puertorriqueño and Al-Aqsa Islamic Society.

“She’s a collection of wood and cloth and paper,” Magar said. “And yet, she’s become such an incredible, powerful symbol for the best that we can be in our culture.”