Supporting communities  |  7 Jan 2020

Cards and drawings left as tributes following the March mosque attacks are being given a new life as seeded paper gifts for bereaved family members.

Paper messages of support left on Rolleston Ave and outside the Al Noor Mosque have been sorted into about 60 labelled boxes and then donated by Christchurch City Council to a local woman, Rebecca Parnham, for her Giving Seeds of Love community project.

Members of the local Muslim community were happy for the donation to go ahead. Many have been closely involved with the initiative, including Rebecca's friend Zahra Hussaini who is a member of the Who is Hussain? organisation in Christchurch.

Rebecca has been running Giving Seeds of Love workshops at schools, pre-schools and with groups of adults since the events of 15 March. 

She shows participants how to make pulped recycled paper and mix it with wildflower seeds. The seed-filled paper is shaped into moulds or cards and then dried so they can be planted later either in pots or gardens.

Her two children handed out about 120 cards made from seeded paper to visitors at the Tributes of Aroha exhibition held at the Christchurch Art Gallery in September. In total, more than 2000 have been distributed.

She has also run workshops with affected Muslim families at Al Noor Mosque and has distributed hundreds of the handmade gifts – seeded paper made into a heart shape in a pot (donated by Bunnings Warehouse) full of potting mix – to families in the Muslim community. 

Rebecca, a trained social worker, says the project, which has been supported by the Lady Khadija Charitable Trust, is about promoting inclusivity and a more cohesive sense of community. Recycling the tributes into something that brings new life makes sense.

“I have a lot of Muslim friends so, right from the start, people would ask me questions about how they could help. People want to show their love and support and unity but they don’t know how.

"Initially, leaving tributes was a way for people to express sympathy, and for us to use those gifts to create something new is a way to keep that support going. We’re finding to way for that outpouring of love to continue.”

She says the process of making paper is therapeutic. “It’s a gentle way to create discussion, and it’s a way to grow meaningful connections. We chose wildflower seeds because they are symbolic of the beauty of diversity and there are forget-me-nots for remembrance.”

She pre-prepares the paper made from the tributes because she says it can be quite confronting to see personal messages made by other people. The Rasulallah Centre in Bishopdale has also donated used paper to Giving Seeds of Love.

Council Community Partnerships and Planning Manager Gary Watson says Rebecca's project re-uses the paper tributes in a positive way. "Her workshops bring people together and the initiative has had a lot of support from the Muslim community in Christchurch. It's a nice way for the tributes to keep on giving."

The Council has also given Rebecca several boxes of plastic flowers that were left as tributes and she hopes to use them to make a large floral archway at a prominent location, such as Christchurch International Airport, that would welcome people when they arrive in the city.

Her other project is a Unity Garden in Life in Vacant Spaces’ East x East community space off Brooker Ave, where some of the seeded paper has been used to create beds of flowers.

Mr Watson says the remaining tributes are currently in storage and will be sorted and saved sensitively. A group from the Muslim Community is working alongside Canterbury Museum staff to help choose a range of tributes for the museum's permanent collection.