This week has been busy for Belfast City of Sanctuary. We’ve been East, West and today, North Belfast. Tomorrow afternoon, we will complete our tour of Belfast by holding a celebration at St Malachy’s Youth Centre at Lower Stanfield Street, Belfast. This is our South Belfast venue.

The theme this year for Refugee Week 2025 is Community as A Superpower.

Today at Cliftonville Community Centre, that ‘superpower’ was in evidence as our refugee volunteers took centre stage to organise and run the events this week.

Today we had dance, food, face painting and a cake baked and decorated by one of our volunteers.

African drums, now increasingly a feature in our Schools of Sanctuary, were presided over by our steadfast and long term friend Wilson Magwere.

With each of our visits to different parts of Belfast, we meet new people from a wide range of countries, some of them here some time, and others perhaps only here a matter of months. Despite the noise from conversations and music, new friendships were forged.