Serving Local Communities

The BACA promotes interfaith harmony and integration in its local British community – Ilford in London, England. Projects raising the profile of the BACA also build up our neighbourhood relations. Examples include fitness classes for women and children; helping the homeless; public barbecues; street parties; and staging Redbridge Borough’s biggest party for the Queen’s Jubilee.

We have led the Redbridge Carnival, a multicultural event with 15,000 attendees and the BACA runs a community centre which helps knife crime victims, and hosts interfaith harmony seminars and workshops. We continue to lead various local police community meetings to improve engagement between local people and the constabulary.   The BACA also organises the Redbridge Easter Parade every Easter Monday with 14 local churches involved. All of these initiatives bring communities together but also provide an opportunity for Pak-Christians to be more prominent locally and help to highlight the issues facing Pakistani Christians. These events, supported by partner community groups, have given BACA a central role in encouraging friendships across religions, races and ages.

We have been humbled to receive awards in recognition of these ground-breaking projects. Our former chairman was given a ‘Community Crime Fighter’ accolade by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009. We received a London Peace Award for ‘Building Community Bridges’ in 2010. The British Sikh Council named our former BACA chairman a ‘Human Rights Champion’ the same year. BACA itself won a ‘Service to the Community’ award in the Anti-Knife UK Awards 2012. BACA Chairmen are invited to sit on the London-based Strategic Community Engagement Panel by Scotland Yard (Police) as a result of the BACA’s knowledge of the South East Asian Diaspora needs in London.  In 2020, BACA were one of only 40 faith organisations to win a ‘London Faith and Belief Award’. This award was given for our ‘Meals for the Homeless project and food bank that served up to 65 people twice a day during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACA Trustees have been invited to previous Easter Receptions at Downing Street by PM David Cameron. Mr Cameron pledged to speak up about the Blasphemy Law of Pakistan and promised to call for freedom for Asia Bibi, a mum-of-two currently on death row on a false blasphemy charge.