Giant puppet “Little Amal” arrives in New York – NBC New York (47)

NEW YORK – The message of hope from giant puppet Little Amal, representing a Syrian refugee girl, addressed the iconic Fifth Avenue public library in Manhattan on Thursday to raise awareness among New Yorkers about minors forced to leave their countries due to wars .

The several hundred people who waited for her arrival or who stopped to watch her greeted Amal with applause, who sometimes enjoyed greeting the children, hugging one of the lions guarding the newspaper or asking for a hot dog in the street.

Amal, which in Arabic means hope, “represents all children displaced by violence or other reasons in the world”, the artistic producer of the visit to New York of this 3.5 meter tall puppet, the Colombian Yazmany Arboleda.

The puppet is the protagonist of the initiative “Il Cammino”, launched by the theater company Good Chance and whose goal is “to give a face and a name to the refugee crisis”.

Amal began a journey through numerous countries in June 2021, which began in Turkey and took her to Greece, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, France and Italy, where she was welcomed by Pope Francis.

In New York, where he arrived yesterday, he will be there until October 2 and during this time he will participate in 55 events in the five boroughs of the city, including a visit to the United Nations, the Statue of Liberty or Times Square.

“The idea of ​​little Amal as a puppet is that art can enter our lives and transform them, invoke our imagination and our ability to be creative, to create a world where we can protect each other,” continues Arboleda.

For her part, Susan Feldman, artistic director of the company St. Ann Warehouse, organizer of Amal’s trip to New York, insisted with Efe that the United States is a country of welcome immigrants.

Feldman, who highlighted the current crisis that New York is suffering from the massive load of immigrants from Texas, stressed that Amal’s arrival highlights that “it is a good time for empathy and understanding”.

Fifth Avenue Public Library welcomed Amal with two large banners reading “Knowledge Is Power” and “Read Forbidden Books”.

Between the two messages, the puppet, moved from the inside by a puppeteer and two other puppeteers who handle his long wooden arms, danced as the protagonist of a short show in which he played with forbidden books that flew like butterflies and with colored kites. .

Eventually, the participants held up a poster reading “Every child needs a safe place to dream”.

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