Final preparations are made for Little Amal to walk through Wigan this weekend

Ten-year-old Little Amal represents a child refugee and has walked from the Turkish-Syrian border, across several countries, in search of her mother.

She will arrive in Wigan on Sunday afternoon for the final leg of her journey, which will finish in Manchester city centre on Wednesday.

Little Amal will visit Trencherfield Mill at 3pm, before walking along Southgate to The Edge conference centre. Southgate will be closed to traffic as she makes her journey.

During a 45-minute show, visitors can enjoy performances by Wigan Community Choir, WigLe Dance, Wigan Youth Brass Band and poet Louise Fazackerley.

There will be an installation produced by Manchester Street Poem - an art collective of people with lived experience of homelessness - at 4pm in The Edge, where they will read stories to Little Amal.

Support for Wigan Arrivals Project (SWAP), a community organisation which supports asylum seekers, is working with community groups across Greater Manchester and local artist Ibukun Baldwin to create a large patchwork quilt for Little Amal.

Manchester International Festival is working with Wigan Council to welcome Little Amal – a 3.5m-tall puppet created by Good Chance Theatre and Handspring Puppet Company.

She has already travelled from the Syrian border across Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium in search of her mother.

Her journey represents those taken by the millions of people who have been violently displaced by war or persecution, especially children.

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