Lee Rigby Memorial Painting

An image of the Lee Rigby memorial board to be placed around local parks in Ilford.

The British Pakistani Christian Association has commissioned the artwork above, working in conjunction with the East Ilford Betterment Partnership.  

The project involved holding a series of spray art workshops with children and young people in which they heard messages of hope and peace, given by leaders of all the local major faiths and various statutory agencies.  The final design is a combination of all the elements children wanted to see in a memorial to the unfortunate soldier who was killed on home soil, in an unprovoked extremist attack.

The artwork contains an image of Lee Rigby with a Union flag behind him, the words "This only unites us" is underscored by motifs of all the major faiths residing in Britain.  Children felt these images helped people to reflect on the callous incident and to gain hope from the unnecessary waste of life.  They also felt the image illustrated that Britain has a strong cohesive society in which people of all faiths, contribute to the betterment of society together.

The image will be placed on Ilford's South Park, then Loxford Park, for a period of 3 months each. It is hoped the board will later be accepted as a gift from the children of Ilford, to the military barracks where Lee Rigby was serving. 

Wilson Chowdhry Chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, said;

"The attack on Lee Rigby shocked me to the core.  A innocent man lost his life to murderers bent on causing alienation and conflict, fuelled with twisted and inconsistent extremist ideologies.  The pain they have caused to the friends and family of Lee Rigby and witnesses to the incident is immense.  We hope that justice prevails in the current old Bailey court proceeding against the perpetrators of this heinous crime."

He added;  "We have launched our project this week to remind people engrossed with the current court proceedings, that this attack was undertaken by extremists and not any particular faith group.  We call for tolerance and peace and for people of all diversities to stand together against fundamentalism of any type."

We are hoping to install a permanent memorial for Lee Rigby at the Military Barracks and are seeking permission for this.   Local Artist Madhumita Bose who married and lived in Woolwich for 20 years, before moving to Lewisham, has proposed a painted iron structure.  This would include a Diversity Tree that would stem from a drum, which will be embossed with an image of Lee Rigby and the emblem of his unit.  The tree branches will contain various national flags and images that reflect our themes of Peace, Hope and Unity. These images produced by children from Ilford and Greenwich could include cultural or religious motifs, animals or other symbolic items as well as words of peace.

Here is an example of a smaller Diversity Tree produced by Madhumita.

If you would like to donate to our Lee Rigby Memorial our bank details are as follows:

Sort Code: 20-67-90

Account number: 63468976

Bank: Barclays

Ref:  Lee Rigby Memorial

Alternatively, please use the pay-pal facility on the top right hand corner of our blog, or simply send a cheque made payable to the  BPCA  to our address;  57 Green Lane, Ilford, Essex, IG1 1XG.

With your support we hope to bring peace to the communities of Britain.