Residents brave wet weather to welcome giant puppet Little Amal to Wigan

Little Amal, a giant puppet of a ten-year-old refugee girl, was given an official welcome into the town by Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, ceremonial mayor for Wigan Yvonne Klieve, and Wigan Council leader David Molyneux, as part of a huge global arts event, The Walk.

The 3.5 metre puppet walked around Wigan town centre and Trencherfield Mill as part of her 8,000km journey from the Turkish-Syrian border, which ends right here in the North West.

Created by Good Chance Theatre and the Handspring Puppet Company, Little Amal is an artistic depiction of a refugee child in search of her mother.

Little Amal will continue her journey through the North West by visiting Rochdale and Manchester this week

Travelling through 65 villages, towns and cities, she has been welcomed by a host of artists of and leaders from around the world, and her journey represents those taken by the millions of people who have been violently displaced by war or persecution, especially children. At this time of multiple global crises Amal’s urgent message to the world is "Don't forget about us".

Wigan Council collaborated with Manchester International Festival to bring the puppet to the town, and treated her to a 45-minute show including dance performances from WigLe Dance and music from Wigan's Youth Brass Band.

A collective of people with lived experience of homelessness then read stories to Little Amal in the Edge conference centre, which was produced by Manchester Street Poem.

Little Amal will continue travelling through the North West this week, visiting Rochdale tomorrow (November 2) before finishing her journey at a huge cultural event at Castlefield Bowl in Manchester on Wednesday, November 3.

Councillor Chris Ready, cabinet member for communities and culture said: “It’s a privilege to be included in ‘The Walk’. We’re excited to be working with our cultural partners to also hold a number of activities for visitors while Little Amal tours the Pier quarter.

“Little Amal is an astounding piece of art with a really significant message. Her journey is representative of the tens of thousands of children who have been displaced by war or persecution.

“We’re a compassionate borough and are so proud to have been included in Little Amal’s journey.”

At yesterday's event, creative director, Mark Ball, told visitors that Little Amal's presence in Greater Manchester is testament to the "open-heartedness" of the region.

He said: "I think it says something about the incredible sense of welcome and open-heartedness that Greater Manchester has always shown.

“Manchester is a city of 207 mother tongues, incredibly linguistically diverse, been the home to many immigrant communities over the past two-or-three-hundred-years, and it’s a city of refuge.

“This is an area where we are working with the Wigan Arrivals project which supports refugees to come here.

“It’s a region known for its friendliness, so when the organisers were thinking about the project, thinking about where it ended, they came to us — because they wanted the ending to be in Manchester because of that sense of welcome this city represents.”