that.

>> a twelve foot puppet created in the image of a ten year-old syrian refugee girl is coming to the detroit area this weekend as a part of a free public art festival.

little amount is on a six thousand mile journey across the united states to bring attention to human rights and the large number of children fleeing war violence and persecution in their countries.

one detroit contributor deja mas spoke with the project's artistic director.

amir nazar is why bay about little mel's global walk and cause.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> our first walk started in july.

twenty-one when we started and long journey from this same, take his border through sixty-five cities and hate countries all the way to manchester in the uk and her first walk on my own at over a million people.

when i was asked to leave the sect a sickly, i felt.

>> very, very pleased.

>> but also tortured, tormented by the huge responsibility and by creating a project that was an groundbreaking because nobody did a project of that scale with this kind of concept because i'm from palestine and from the same basket of misfortune in many ways like syrian refugees are.

i think that the three chains that come to mind when i think about tina mine is vulnerability and he's really ends and curiosity and in a way their own interconnected, right?

she is resilient because he's vulnerable.

she's vulnerable because he's curious.

he's curious because he's so its kind in many ways.

he's ten years old.

she's just a child.

i think of her as a real ten year-olds has a lot of experience.

obviously, she is a child of warren.

she is gone through a lot but she's so >> life loving and carry us and she'll always be fair.

ice cream hold their fear.

so we are in twenty twenty-three and i was as we speak, leisure lee.

now there are millions of displaced refugee children around the world.

the the message of don't forget about us is in today's world and in an affluent world, we believe that there is space for them.

there is a need to take care of them.

and we can just disregard this.

and i think that would be out project wants to do is first to raise awareness.

so people know that this happening and it's not happening as numbers and statistics and headlines in the newspapers.

it's happening to real people that are complete that are complicated, sometimes at least sometimes beautiful and sometimes silly, sometimes clever.

but they are people just like us and they shouldn't be held in limbo.

but we are all refugees, children, of refugees, grandchildren, refugees.

and we are also guests.

and i think this notion is something that we should constantly remind ourselves about.

and one of the most beautiful things about this project for me is that sometimes walking down the street, somebody who's for definitely not a new year arrived refugee and has been living in this community for years goes.

she is neat because i understand how it feels to be a fade or i understand how it feels to be alone.

our she reminds me of my mother, my grandmother.

so people people tend to think of hair.

i'm somebody that belongs to them.

and that's already a huge achievement of the product.

but one of the great things about the walk is that every walk isn't you want because every walk isn't you encounter with the new city with a new community in the city with the new different texture, you know, it's completely fresh every time that detroit is one of the city's i'm most excited about have company has ceded the state.

obviously, detroit has a very complicated history.

and in many ways, detroit says is a story of the phoenix rising and part of the feathers on the wings of that.

phoenix is the new immigrants, the refugee communities that are helping shape reshaped detroit and i think from miles heritage for where she comes from detroit in dearborn, michigan, as a whole has a huge de espera.

but what the city represents was really crucial for for the storytelling of refugee.

the discoveries the united states at the trade was never a question in many ways.

i think detroit is is an amazing place to be in right now with the mount.

i think she represents a lot of people in the city, but i think she also represent the city, right.

it is a story about is also a story about survival.

it's a story about resilience.

it's a story about somebody that keeps walking forward no matter the hardship.

and i think that is the city we're sorry, ten or so.

we we come with with a humble gifts to the table.

we wants to provoke thoughts.

we want to inspire people to think differently to act differently.

when i think i was the walk in fifteen years, i think what is the legacy it leaves in children that may take a day or in adults how would day thing differently?

what would inspire them to be?

well, coming to be a compassionate.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC]