‘Little Amal’ journeys through Chattanooga
12-foot-tall puppet of 10-year-old Syrian refugee
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — Something a little out of the ordinary joined the 3 Sisters Bluegrass Festival on the Riverfront.
The 12-foot-tall puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl, Little Amal, made her way to Chattanooga.
“Little Amal is a special, artistic representation that’s goal is to really humanize the idea of displaced refugee children. We wanted to use art to really understand and figure out how can we talk about this issue? How can we understand this issue on a more intrinsic level,” Volunteer Outreach, Community Outreach, Fundraising with Choose Love Jordan Chatman said.
The 12-foot puppet of a Syrian refugee child, Amal, has impacted many around the world.
She stopped Saturday in Chattanooga during her 6 thousand mile walk across the U.S.
People of all ages were able to see her firsthand at the 3 Sisters Bluegrass Festival at Ross’s Landing.
“It’s a six thousand mile journey, and Amal is in search of community. Amal is trying to understand America. And along the way, we have partnered with so many community organizatioins on the ground that have helped Amal find family, friends, and community,” Chatman said.
Amal is set out on a two-month journey from sea to shining sea, and stopped in Chattanooga to learn more about the history and impact of the area.
“Every event is unique. So it’s special to see how each city, how each person, really feels about Amal. You see a variety and a spectrum of emotions. Sometimes you have people who come up and they’re crying. Because Amal represents a story that they can relate to.
The name ‘Amal’ means hope. So you see a variety of children who are like, ‘Oh my gosh what is this giant thing in front of me?’ and you also have people from the community who are resonating with Amal’s journey. So they come together to help Amal have this safe and impactful journey,” Chatman said.
The internationally celebrated puppet is joining over 1,500 artists at more than 250 artistic events as she journeys across the nation over the course of nine weeks.
This one not so little, little girl shares one big hope.
“That’s the underlying purpose of this is to make sure we have support for the Amal fund which is ran through Choose Love… to continue to raise money for displaced children around the world so that they can get the support that they need,” Chatman said.
