Children Create Statues To Commemorate WWI Centenary

Two hundred school children from London are marking the First World War centenary by sculpting statues.

The pupils are taking part into "Coming World Remember", a project to commemorate the 600,000 people who died on Belgian soil between 1914 and 1918.

The Belgian run scheme was launched in 2014, and so far students like these have made around 475,000 statues.

They were joined by the Belgian Ambassador, Guy Trouveroy, Westminster’s Armed Forces Champion, Cllr Rachael Robathan, the Lord Mayor of Westminster, Cllr Steve Summers and officers from the centre.

By March 2018 all 600,000 will be displayed together in Belgium, at the site of the wartime no man’s land in Ypres – one of the most heavily fought over places in the First World War.

The material used to make the sculptures is a mixture of clay from Flanders and from Germany, symbolising reconciliation.

The children’s unique fist sized sculptures will be part of the project’s 600,000 works, all of which will make up a public land art installation at the site of the wartime no man’s land in Ypres.

The installation will be opened in 2018, a full century after the end of the Great War.

At the end of the session each of the children’s sculptures was baked in a kiln.

The figures were individually dog tagged, displaying the name of a fallen soldier or civilian on one side and the name of the child who created it on the other.

The project hope the art installation will remind people of the futility of war and the importance of remembering those that fought for our freedom.