Last year, Kay made this beautiful dog puppet for the Year 10 Drama Ensemble performing at the 2016 NSW Public Schools State Drama Festival in Sydney, Australia.

The drama piece was inspired by this amazing story of a cat who was reunited with his family after being separated in Lesbos, as well as this online article about Syrian refugees fleeing the war together with their pets.

The puppet dog’s name is ‘Raja’ which means ‘hope’ in Arabic. It was made from cane, bamboo, foam and plywood, and covered in frayed hessian.

HOW RAJA WAS MADE

Here are some videos showing how this puppet was made, with a demo of the finished puppet having a play with my real dog, Louie 🙂

Here are some more progress photos below (with more details in the captions):

Mock up
Cutting out the plywood legs
Testing out the plywood legs
Adding a spine
Trying out a 'play bow'
Workshop photo
Cane puppet progress
Adding foam
Fray, Fray, Fray!
And then there was a head
Side view of the puppet with its new head
Adding ears
Closer look at the ears
Almost covered
Close up of Raja's face
Raja tries a play bow
All done! Let's play fetch!
Raja the Dog
My workshop space, complete with real dog

[Show slideshow]

 

‘Raja’ had an important story to tell, about the plight of over 5 million refugees who have fled Syria.

Here is a video from UNHCR – UN Refugee Agency, about 17 year old Aslan Al Hakim from Damascus, Syria. Aslan fled the war and took only a small bag and his dog, Rose.