The life of a young murder victim is to be honoured at the secondary school in Willesden where he was a pupil.
Capital City Academy, in Doyle Gardens, is to dedicate the school’s theatre to Quamari Serukuma-Barnes who was fatally stabbed outside its gates a year ago.
Pupils, staff and Quamari’s parents gathered in the school hall on Tuesday to participate in a special memorial service on the anniversary of the popular 15-year-old’s death.
Principal Marianne Jeanes, said: “As a school community we paid tribute to Quamari Serunkuma-Barnes with a private memorial service for staff and students on Tuesday at the academy.
“In honour of Quamari and to celebrate his passion and commitment to the Arts, we have decided to dedicate our school theatre in his memory.
“We are proposing to update, redecorate and rename the theatre as a tribute to his life and as a lasting legacy to the students at Capital City Academy.”
Quamari’s family have described their son as a “lovely boy, very warm, very loving, very funny” who had nothing to do with gangs.
Bob Marley was his hero and he loved to sing and perform.
Quamari’s proud father Paul Barnes said: “What the school is suggesting is a really great honour. It fits Quamari, he would have loved that. He did think he was a little Bob Marley. He thought he had the best voice in the world.
“I’m choked and lost for words. This tribute to his memory suits Quamari down to a T.”
Popular and hard-working, Quamari aimed to get “top marks” in his GCSEs before he was stabbed outside the gates of his school on January 23 last year.
Thousands turned out for his funeral on March 10, filling the Sacred Heart Church, in Quex Road, Kilburn, to hear family tributes to the “much-loved boy with a heart full of gold.”
His mother Lilian Serunkuma said: “It’s amazing they will name the theatre after Quamari, it’s very fitting of his character. He would have been revelling in it. He is a joyful person, that’s how we know him. He would have taken something like that, made a joke of it to his friends to make sure they knew his name was on there and in a modest way he would have accepted and been very grateful that people would want to do something like that.”
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